Patricia—with eyes widened in admiration at his rhetoric,—had turned an enticing shade of pink.
"I am glad of that," she said.
She snuggled so close he could not see her face now. She was to all appearances attempting to twist the top-button from his coat.
"I am very glad that it entitles one to hope—about the children—Because—"
The colonel lifted her a little from him. He did not say anything. But he was regarding her half in wonder and one-half in worship.
She, too, was silent. Presently she nodded.
He kissed her as one does a very holy relic.
It was a moment to look back upon always. There was no period in Rudolph Musgrave's life when he could not look back upon this instant and exult because it had been his.
* * * * *
Only, Patricia found out afterward, with an inexplicable disappointment, that her husband had not been talking extempore, but was freely quoting his "Compiler's Foreword" just as it figured in the printed book.