Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/84

70 "That's a part of it." Rose glanced at the document he had brought to her; it was in its envelope, and he tapped it a little impatiently on his left finger-tips. What she said, however, had no reference to it. "She's haunted with a morbid alarm—on the subject, of all things, of his marrying again."

"If she should die? She wants him not to?" Dennis asked.

"She wants him not to." Rose paused a moment. "She wants to have been the only one."

He reflected, slightly embarrassed with this peep into a situation that but remotely concerned him. "Well, I suppose that's the way women often feel."

"I daresay it is." The girl's gravity gave the gleam of a smile. "I daresay it's the way I should."

Dennis Vidal, at this, simply seized her and kissed her. "You needn't be afraid—you'll be the only one!"

His embrace had been the work of a few seconds, and she had made no movement to escape from it;