"Really, I do—not—know!"
"I agree with lots of the things you——"
"No, I agree with you, but just at the time—you know."
Her lively, defensive eyes were tender. He put his arm lightly about her shoulders—lightly, but his finger-tips were sensitive to every thread of her thin bodice that seemed tissue as warmly living as the smooth shoulder beneath. She pressed her eyes against his coat, her coiled dark hair beneath his chin. A longing to cry like a boy, and to care for her like a man, made him reverent. The fear of Phil vanished. Intensely conscious though he was of her hair and its individual scent, he did not kiss it. She was sacred.
She sprang from him, and at the piano hammered out a rattling waltz. It changed to gentler music, and under the shaded piano-lamp they were silent, happy. He merely touched her hand, when he went, but he sang his way home, wanting to nod to every policeman.
"I've found her again; it isn't merely play, now!" he kept repeating. "And I've learned something. I don't really know what it is, but it's as though I'd learned a new language. Gee! I'm happy!"
CHAPTER XXXV
