“I think so, I think I’d call it that,” she admitted.
“I think so, too. And that is lucky for us. That makes this crazy situation more comfortable—less—well, perhaps less ponderous.”
The girl assented with a vague smile, but her eyes remained lowered.
“You see,” he went on, “when two people are as oddly situated as we are, they’re likely to be afraid of being in each other’s way. But they ought to get on without being unhappy as long as they are quite confident of each other’s friendly consideration. Don’t you think so, Tressa?”
Her lowered eyes rested steadily on her ring-finger. “Yes,” she said. “And I am not—unhappy, or—afraid.”
She lifted her blue gaze to his; and, somehow, he thought of her barbaric name, Keuke,—and its Yezidee significance, “heavenly—azure.”
“Are we really going away together?” she asked timidly.
“Certainly, if you wish.”
“If you, also, wish it, Mr. Cleves.”
He found himself saying with emphasis that he always wished to do what she desired. And he added, more gently: