Page:Fidelia, (IA fidelia00balm).pdf/363

 "Happy now?" David asked her, when they were in and every one else was shut out.

"I never dreamed I could be so happy, David. Are you?"

He touched her cheek and then turned her face up to his. "I know what's in your dear little head when you look at me like that, Alice: am I as happy as I was with Fidelia?"

"David, I don't mean to ask it."

"You can't help it. And I can't help it. Dear, this is very different;anddifferent; and [sic] this is better, sweet little heart. Now kiss me."

She did and he said, "This feels like home, Alice; and I never had that feeling before. We'll buy this house, as soon as we can, won't we?"

"I'd love to. It'll do us for years or at least until we have more than two children."

"Yes," he said and slipped his hand over hers as he realized that she was taking up her plan with him just where they had left it off five years ago.

It was indeed very different from being married to Fidelia; it was, indeed, very like having been away and having come home. And it was good but it was so different that a comparison was really impossible. So he could say "better" as honestly as he could say anything else.

To him it sometimes seemed that a different person—or at least a different part of him—had married and lived with Fidelia, had climbed with her upon the Throne of Saturn and played with her at being Titans on the far-away dawn of creation's day. That part—that reckless, pagan impulse which had possessed him