He showed her the dining-room with its smooth-oiled mahogany table and then laid his hand lightly on the panel of the other door.
“In there,” he said softly, “is the bedroom furniture which was my mother’s. Would you like that too?”
The color faded from Horatia’s cheeks and the gravity of her eyes deepened.
“I want it,” she answered.
Her pallor frightened him.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you, darling?”
“A little afraid of life—not you—and the curious thing is that I don’t know what part of life does frighten me. It’s only that sometimes there seem to be so many things I don’t know yet—or understand——”
Langley often thought of her as she was when she said those words, standing in his shadowy living-room, with the light from the window on her face half-turned away from him towards things she did not understand. So young—so instinctively brave and so instinctively honest. And so beautiful.
“I shall tell you of as many as I can and there will be things we both don’t understand that we must find out together. But we will go—hand in hand—with our heads up—to meet them.”
She turned and caught his hands in her own outstretched ones.