"Yes," he answered judiciously, "if your own conscience is satisfied."
She smiled a little, her eyebrows lifting in amusement. "Oh, my own conscience dictates my every act, Philip."
"I know it does," he agreed, earnestly. "But your lips were cold to my kiss." He bent over to test the truth of his remark.
"Do you forget Lawrence so easily?" Claire raised a hand over her face. "Certainly I cannot."
"I beg your pardon," Philip said, rising hastily. "Of course he is to be remembered. We will wait until we are alone to talk of our future."
"Yes," she said. "I should prefer that greatly."
He touched his lips to her forehead tenderly, then stepped silently into the room beyond.
She heard him as he moved quietly to replenish the fire, and it seemed to her that he made enough noise to echo from the mountains across the lake. She must think her situation through. She was studying the look she had read on Philip's face, and was angry with herself, yet she could not help thinking of it and its meaning. Suddenly she remembered the same expression on her husband's face, and she shuddered. She had thought it beautiful then, why not now? And why should she be so contemptuous when probably the same look had been in her own eyes when she had raged at Lawrence because he had not taken her in his arms. Philip was sitting out there beyond the curtain dreaming ecstatically of the days when they would be alone in the cabin, and she smiled ironically. After all, there was but one way out. He would find little comfort in her ghost, and her drowned body would scarcely fire him to passion.
She rose and slipped out into the room. Lawrence was still asleep. She did not even glance toward Philip because she foresaw his look of proprietorship. She went straight to Lawrence, and bending over him as if to arrange something about his blanket, she whispered softly: "Beloved, when I am alone with him, I shall be more with you."
Philip came and stood beside her, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.