"There are those who might tell me differently."
"Let them talk. I know."
"Do you?—you darling!" Her soft, fragrant mouth touched his cheek, lingered, then she laughed to herself for the very happiness of living.
"Isn't it wonderful how a word sometimes shatters the fixed ideas that a girl has arrived at through prayer and fasting? I am beginning to think that no real intelligence can remain very long welded to any one fixed belief."
"What do you mean, Valerie?" She rested her head on his shoulder and sat considering, eyes remote; then her white fingers crept into his:
"We won't talk about it now. I was wrong in some ways. You or common sense—or something—opened my eyes…. But we won't talk about it now…. Because there are still perplexities—some few…. We'll go over them together—and arrange matters—somehow."
"What matters?"
But she placed a soft hand over his lips, imposing silence, and drew his arm around her with a little sigh of content.
Presently she said: "Have you noticed my gown? I made it."
He smiled and bent forward to look.