"What has wrought this celestial change in you, Phil?" she whispered, listlessly humourous.
"What change?"
"The spiritual."
"Is there one? I seem to kiss you just as ardently."
"I know. . . . But—for the first time since I ever saw you—I feel that I am safe in the world. . . . It may annoy me."
He laughed.
"I may grow tired of it," she insisted, watching him. "I may behave like a naughty, perverse, ungrateful urchin, and kick and scream and bite. . . . But you won't let me be hurt, will you?"
"No, child." His voice was laughing at her, but his eyes were curiously grave.
She put both arms up around his neck with a quick catch of her breath.
"I do love you—I do love you. I know it now, Phil—I know it as I never dreamed of knowing it. . . . You will never let me be hurt, will you? Nothing can harm me now, can it?"