Some times he felt that that one hour was all he wanted; it carried so far, helped so greatly. He was so boyishly content in it. And then she would make a gesture, or there would be, for a second, a deeper note in her voice, and the mad instinct to catch her to him was almost overwhelming.
Some times he wondered if she were not very lonely, not knowing that she, too, lived for days on that one hour. She was not going out, because of Chris's death, and he knew there were long hours when she sat alone, struggling determinedly with the socks she was knitting.
Only once did they tread on dangerous ground, and that was on her birthday. He stopped in a jeweler's on his way up-town and brought her a black pearl on a thin almost invisible chain, only to have her refuse to take it.
“I can't Clay!”
“Why not?”
“It's too valuable. I can't take valuable presents from men.”
“It's value hasn't anything to do with it.”
“I'm not wearing jewelry, anyhow.”
“Audrey,” he said gravely, “it isn't the pearl. It isn't its value. That's absurd. Don't you understand that I would like to think that you have something I have given you?”
When she sat still, thinking over what he had said, he slipped the chain around her neck and clasped it. Then he stooped down, very gravely, and kissed her.