"Never mind him—give me a kiss, Louis. I'm not frightened, if you are!" she whispered softly, and half awkward and shy he held her in his arms, gathering courage as he felt how she trembled, and guessed how his kisses made her soft and helpless in his arms. "Let's forget worries for a while—we'll never be sitting on an anchor in the Indian Ocean again, in a sea of ghost lights, shall we, Louis?"
"Say 'Louis dear,'" he ordered, gathering courage, kissing her hand. She said it, a little hesitatingly.
"We never say words like that at home," she whispered. "Only mother did, because she was English—"
"I'm English, too. I like words like that. Now say 'Louis darling.'"
"It sounds as if you're a baby."
"So I am—Marcella's baby," he whispered. "Say 'Louis darling.'"
"I can't, Louis," she said uneasily, "I can't say love things. I can only do them. I love you—oh, most dreadfully, but I can't talk about it."
She buried her face on his shoulder. Through his thin canvas coat she could feel his heart thumping as hers was.
"I'm going to kiss that funny little hollow place at the bottom of your neck," she whispered in a smothered voice. "What a good thing you don't wear collars in the Indian Ocean! Louis, tell me all the funny Latin names for the bones in your fingers, and I'll kiss them all—I can't say silly words to you like—like Violet could."
After a while he tried to carry his point.