"You have said nicer things to me. That is your reward. I wonder if you remember any of the nice things you say to me? Oh, don't look so hurt and astonished—because I don't believe you do. . . . Isn't it jolly to sit here and let life drift past us? Out there in the world"—she nodded backward toward the open—"out yonder all that 'progress' is whirling around the world, and here we sit—just you and I—quite happily, swinging our feet in perfect content and talking nonsense. . . . What more is there after all than a companionship that admits both sense and nonsense?"
She laughed, turning her chin on her shoulder to glance at him; and when the laugh had died out she still sat lightly poised, chin nestling in the hollow of her shoulder, considering him out of friendly beautiful eyes in which no mockery remained.
"What more is there than our confidence in each other and our content?" she said.
And, as he did not respond: "I wonder if you realise how perfectly lovely you have been to me since you have come into my life? Do you? Do you remember the first day—the very first—how I sent word to you that I wished you to see my first real dinner gown? Smile if you wish—Ah, but you don't, you don't understand, my poor friend, how much you became to me in that little interview. . . . Men's kindness is a strange thing; they may try and try, and a girl may know they are trying and, in her turn, try to be grateful. But it is all effort on both sides. Then—with a word—an impulse born of chance or instinct—a man may say and do that which a woman can never forget—and would not if she could."
"Have I done—that?"
"Yes. Didn't you understand? Do you suppose any other man in the world could have what you have had of me—of my real self? Do you suppose for one instant that any other man than you could ever obtain from me the confidence I offer you unasked? Do I not tell you everything that enters my head and heart? Do you not know that I care for you more than for anybody alive?"
"Gerald—"
She looked him straight in the eyes; her breath caught, but she steadied her voice:
"I've got to be truthful," she said; "I care for you more than for Gerald."
"And I for you more than anybody living," he said.