“Why should I?” with a mischievous dimple showing itself in her cheek.
“This is malice aforethought,” he said firmly, sitting down beside her, and withdrawing a morsel of bread from her hands. “Now,” holding her wrists, “give me a kiss, sweet, passionate soul in a passionless body.”
“Don’t speak in that way,” she said, kissing him. “It sounds as if I had no feeling.”
“Well, you haven’t. You say ‘dear Brian,’” mimicking her, “and then it is ‘dear granny,’ and ‘dear Bobby,’ and ‘dear everybody.’”
She laughed merrily. “Would you have me striding to and fro and glaring at you, and looking daggers over my shoulder as you do?”
“No; but you might be a little more demonstrative. Women don’t know how to love. You’re nothing but a proper old maid. The time was when I would have cut my throat for a kiss. Lord, what agony!”
She looked at him sweetly, and as he would not release her hands gently laid her cheek against his face.
“You are a beauty and I am a beast,” he said abruptly; “aren’t you afraid of me?”
“Why should I be afraid of you, Brian? You don’t love me for what you are pleased to call my beauty, nor do I love you for what you are pleased to call your lack of it. There is something beyond that.”
“Yes, yes, my angel; I do thank the Lord that I have found one woman that can look into my soul.”