“You’re all right as you are. You always have been all right,” he said in a low voice. “You never were worth less than you are worth now; you’ll never be worth more than you are worth to me at this moment.”
They were walking slowly across the lawn toward the northern veranda. She halted a moment on the grass and cast a questioning glance at him:
“Doesn’t it please you to have me learn things?”
“You always please me.”
“I’m so glad.... I try.... But don’t you think you’d like me better if I were not so ignorant?”
He looked at her absently, shook his head:
“No ... I couldn’t like you better.... I couldn’t care more—for any girl—than I care for you.... Did you suspect that, Dulcie?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s true.”
They moved slowly forward across the grass—he distrait, his handsome head lowered, swinging his tennis-bat as he walked; she very still and lithe and slender, moving beside him with lowered eyes fixed on their mingled shadows on the grass.