“I was just as sure as you were that I cared for you. Confess.”
She whispered it. “Yes, I knew it, but when you did not come I thought, perhaps—— You see, I’m not strong or clever. I can’t help you as Virginia could.” She stopped, the color washing from her face. “I had forgotten. You have no right to love me—nor I you,” she faltered.
“Girl o’ mine, we have every right in the world. Love is never wrong unless it is a theft or a robbery. There is nothing between me and Virginia that is not artificial and conventional, no tie that ought not to be broken, none that should ever of right have existed. Love has the right of way before mere convention a hundredfold.”
“Ah! If I were sure.”
“But I was to be a teacher to you and a judge for you.”
“And I was to be a conscience to you.”
“But on this I am quite clear. I can be a conscience to myself. However, there is no hurry. Time’s a great solvent.”
“And we can go on loving each other in the meantime.”
He lifted her little pink fingers and kissed them. “Yes, we can do that all the time.”