Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/257

Rh what his perversity of pride, as we can only hold it, will have most done for us is to bring us—and to keep us—blessedly together?"

She seemed for a moment to question his "simply." "Do you regard us as so much 'together' when you remember where, in spite of everything, I've put myself?"

"By telling him to do what he likes?" he recalled without embarrassment. "Oh, that wasn't in spite of 'everything'—it was only in spite of the Mantovano."

"'Only'?" she flushed—"when I've given the picture up?"

"Ah," Hugh cried, "I don't care a hang for the picture!" And then as she let him, closer, close to her with this, possess himself of her hands: "We both only care, don't we, that we're given to each other thus? We both only care, don't we, that nothing can keep us apart?"

"Oh, if you've forgiven me—!" she sighed into his fond face.

"Why, since you gave the thing up for me," he pleadingly laughed, "it isn't as if you had given me up!"

"For anything, anything? Ah never, never!" she breathed.