Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/193

 Between Edward and his great adventuring into the world there were not now many hours. Some of them, and they were the happiest, he spent with Alice. But even if these hours were the happiest they weren't perfectly happy. They weren't perfectly happy because Alice managed to make Edward feel as if it was very selfish of him to go away and leave her. She was just the least little bit cool about his haste to convert himself into a famous artist. He might, she seemed to think, have put off his going for a year or two.

Were all women alike, Edward wondered? Wasn't there even one in the whole world who could let her man pursue his destiny in his own way, without interfering with him and jeopardizing his chances?

But in his grief at telling her good-bye Edward forgot that she wasn't perfect and only considered how much he loved her, and how much it was hurting him to go away from her. She went with him to the gate in the wall, and then, just when Edward was trying to nerve himself up to the point of kissing her and was failing, she said suddenly, "Aren't you going to kiss me?"

And that made it easy, and as he leaned for the kiss he heard his own voice murmuring "My darling" and felt terribly grown-up. It was a boy and girl kiss to start with, but right in the middle of it