Always

"Perhaps—I won't promise."

"Why not?"

"Because, even if you weren't good to me, I'd know you never meant it." Rosemary's eyes were grave and sweet; eloquent, as they were, of her perfect trust in him.

He laughed again. "I'd be a brute not to be good to you, whether I meant it or not."

"That sounds twisted," she commented, with a smile.

"But it isn't, as long as you know what I mean."

"I'll always know," sighed Rosemary, blissfully leaning her head against his shoulder. "I'll always understand and I'll never fail you. That's because I love you better than everything else in the world."

"Dear little saint," he murmured; "you're too good for me."

"No, I'm not. On the contrary, I'm not half good enough." Then, after a pause, she asked the old, old question, first always from the lips of the woman beloved: "When did you begin to—care?"