"Well, I thought he half believed that I was right. But he didn't dare say so, like all the rest of them. I must wait God's time, he said. God's time! He meant man's time."
She said nothing. "It's so hard to wait," he added restlessly.
"I'm glad you didn't go," she ventured.
"Why?"
"Many of us are," she equivocated.
"Why?" demanded Paul again, looking boldly at her.
She disdained further subterfuge. "You have made God real to me," she said, "and if you had gone, you would have had no opportunity to do that."
His eyes shone. "I'm very glad," he said softly. "Will you pray for me, Edith?"
She wanted to fling herself down beside him, to hide her flushed face in his coat, to shed the tears that would stupidly start behind her eyes for no reason at all, to tell him that she hardly dared to breathe his name, but that, when she prayed, she could think of scarcely anyone else; but she could not. Every instinct in her cried for him—religion, sex, passionate admiration. But she only clenched one little gloved hand tightly and said that she would. A daughter of Claxted could hardly do otherwise.
The minutes slipped by. Paul rolled over on his back and took out his watch. "My word," he exclaimed, "we ought to be going! We shall be late as it is. But what a topping morning it has been. Come on." And he jumped to his feet.