"I don't believe it could happen. He was chaffing you."
"I think he was."
"But if it did happen—by gad! what a funk some people would be in!"
"The valiant people—who believe in war in the abstract."
"Now you're ironical, Gabrielle."
"No," she said; "I'm only hungry."
III
It was very dark in Well Walk when they arrived before her father's house.
Harry had fallen to a sentimental mood, and would talk about their future just as though it had all been settled in the beginning of things, and was as unalterable as the course of the planets. She began to think that his love for her was very real, and not a mere ebullition of a boyish sentiment. Long years of her childhood seemed to be lived again as he put his arm about her and told her of his happiness.
"You knew it all the time, Gabrielle. You never had any doubt about it. Of course, I loved you. Tell me so yourself. Let me see it in your eyes."