“Don’t try to comfort me. The blow’s too heavy.” He slowly shook his head. “I never loved a dear gazelle——”
“Oh, I don’t mean the usual sort of good-looking,” she consoled him. “But good-looking like an engine, or a crag, or a mountain.”
“Well, at any rate,” he said with solemn resignation, “it’s something to know the particular type of beauty that I am.”
Suddenly they both burst into merry laughter.
“But I’m really in earnest,” she protested. “For you really are good-looking!”
He leaned forward, caught her two hands in his powerful grasp and almost crushed his lips against them.
“Perhaps it’s just as well you don’t mind my face, dear,” he half-whispered, “for, you know, you’re going to see a lot of it.”
She flushed, and her whole being seemed to swim in happiness. They did not speak for a time; and she sat gazing with warm, luminous eyes into his rugged, determined face, now so soft, so tender.
But suddenly her look became very grave, for the question of the morning had recurred to her. Should she not give him up?