“Yes, Stephen,” she replied; “and I say it again, now and always, and I don’t care who hears me.”
“Well, you’ve been a good wife to me,” he returned; “and I don’t care who hears me say it, either. Get that boy here if you like—maybe it is a good move. We’re always having to do things in the dark in this life, and then some way or other light shines on us; but Bess”—and he hesitated, and looked at her from under drooping eyelids as shyly as if he were a boy himself.
She went up quickly to him, and laid a hand on his broad chest. “I know what you want to say, Stephen, you are jealous; you are afraid I’ll think more of that little boy than I do of you.”
“That’s about the figure of it,” he replied.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” she said, “not only to mention such a thing to me, but to dare to think it to yourself. You a big, strong man to be jealous of that little delicate lad. You know just as well as I do why I like him.”
The sergeant’s face cleared. “You like him for the same reason that you like the cats,” he said. “He’s been cast out, and he hasn’t any one to take an interest in him. Well, pet him all you like, and have him here if you can get him, I don’t care;” and the sergeant serenely kissed her, and then wended his way back to the park.