Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/242

 They had been so close to one another during this last hour that he felt as though he could see, as through clear water, deep into her mind.

He knew that, during those last minutes, she had been struggling desperately. She came up to him victorious and, smiling and putting her hand into his, said:

"Tell me what you think about him."

"Simply that he seems to me a wonderful fellow. He seems to you, I expect, a little dull. You've always laughed at him a bit, and for that very reason, and because he's loved you for so long, he's tongue-tied when you're there and shy of showing you what he really thinks about things. He has immense qualities of character—fidelity, honesty, devotion, courage—things simply beyond price, and if you loved him and showed him that you did you'd probably see quite new things—fun and spontaneity and imagination—things that he had always been afraid to show you until now."

Her hand trembled in his.

"You speak," she said, "as though you thought that you were so much older than both of us. I don't feel that you are. Can't you" she broke off. He knew what she would say.

"My dear," and his voice was eloquently paternal, "I am older than both of you—years and years older. Not physically, perhaps, so much, but in every