“Let us get away from the people and sit under a tree,” he said at length.
Yvonne slipped her hand impulsively through his arm.
“I wish you knew how proud I am of you,” she said.
“It’s for your sake, too, Yvonne, dear,” he replied in a touched voice.
She made one of her magnificent little gestures with the hand holding her sunshade.
“I have never done anything to be ashamed of yet,” she said proudly, and glanced from Joyce to a pompous elderly couple with an air of defiance. Then she brought him abruptly to a stand before a flower-bed bright in its summer glory.
“Oh, how lovely! Look!”
She broke into little joyous exclamations. Colour affected her like music. A glow came into her cheek. She became again the thing of warmth and sunshine that had gladdened him four years before, when his degradation lay heavy on him.
“It is a beautiful world, Stephen.”
“You are right, dear. It is. And you are the most beautiful thing in it.”