"Well," she said, smiling at his altered expression, "you certainly have recovered your spirits."
He laughed and took her unreluctant fingers and kissed them—a boyishly impulsive expression of the gay spirits which might have perplexed him or worried him to account for if he had tried to analyse them. But he didn't; he was merely conscious of a sudden inrush of high spirits—of a warm feeling for all the world—this star-set world, so still and sweet-scented.
"Stephanie, dear," he said, smiling, "you know perfectly well that I think—always have thought—that there was nobody like you. You know that, don't you?"
She laughed, but her pulses quickened a little.
"Well, then," he went on. "I take it for granted that our understanding is as delightfully thorough as it has always been—a warm, cordial intimacy which leaves us perfectly unembarrassed—perfectly free to express our affection for each other without fear of being misunderstood."
The girl lifted her blue eyes: "Of course."
"That's what I told Lily," he nodded, delighted. I told her that you and I understood each other—that it was silly of her to suspect anything sentimental in our comradeship; that whenever the real thing put in an appearance and came tagging down the pike after you, you'd sink the gaff into him—"
"The—what?"
"Rope him and paste your monogram all over him."
"I certainly will," she said, laughing. Eyes and lips and voice were steady; but the tumult in her brain confused her.