He laid his cheek against her hot one, then his heart hammering in his breast he kissed her. She did not move away from him; her cheek was still pressed against his, but, as he kissed her, he knew that it was true enough that whosoever one day she loved it would not be him.
He stayed there his hand against her arm. She wiped her eyes.
"I'm frightened," she said. "If Uncle Axel doesn't come in time . . . . mother . . . Mr. Leishman."
"I'm here," Henry cried valiantly, feeling for his pince-nez, which to his delight were not broken "I'll follow you anywhere. No harm shall happen to you so long as I'm alive."
She might have laughed at such a knight with his hair now dishevelled, his eye-glasses crooked, his trouser-knees dusty. She did not. She certainly came nearer at that moment to loving him than she had ever done before.
[CHAPTER IV]
DEATH OF MRS. TRENCHARD
I have said before that one of the chief complaints that Henry had against life was the abrupt fashion in which it jerked him from one set of experiences and emotions into another. When Christina laid her head on her arms and cried and he kissed her Time stood still and History was no more.