"I wish Sarah were here to see you now, Rosey."
"So should I, love! Only she would see you too. And then she'd make you vainer than you are already. All men are patches of Vanity. But I forgive you." She kisses him slightly in confirmation. They certainly were a wonderful sight, the two of them, a minute ago, when the light was at its best. Yes!—they wish Sally had been there, each on the other's account. It was difficult to say which of the two had thought of Sally first. Both had this habit of registering the rapport of everything to Sally as a first duty.
But a sunset glow, like this one, lasts, maybe, little longer than a highest song-note may be sustained. It was to die. But Rosalind and Gerry watched it out. His cheek was resting in the thick mass of soft gold, just moving slightly to be well aware of it. The sun-ray touched it, last of anything in the room, and died....
"What's that, dear love? Why?..." It was Rosalind that spoke.
"Nothing, dearest! No, nothing!... Indeed, nothing at all!"
"Gerry, what was it?"
"What was what, dear?"
"What made you leave off so suddenly?"
For the slightly intermittent movement of his cheek on her hair—what hairy thing is there that does not love to be stroked?—had stopped; and his hand that held hers had slipped from it, and rested for a moment on his own forehead.
"It's gone now. It was a sort of recurrence. I haven't been having them lately...."