LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM
she was bending over him. "Dear," she whispered, with a strange change in the quality of her voice. He knew she was seeking to say something that was difficult to say.
"Yes?" he said presently.
"You are not grieving?"
"What about?"
"This."
"No!"
"You are not—you are not even sorry?" she said.
"No—not even sorry."
"I can't understand that. It's so much———"
"I'm glad," he proclaimed. "Glad."
"But—the trouble—the expense—everything—and your work?"
"Yes," he said, "that's just it."
She looked at him doubtfully. He glanced up at her, and she questioned his eyes. He put his arm about her, and presently and almost absent-mindedly she obeyed his pressure and bent down and kissed him.
"It settles things," he said, holding her. "It joins us. Don't you see? Before. . . But now it's different. It's something we have between us. It's something that. . . It's the link we needed. It will hold us together, cement us together. It will be our life. This will be my work now. The other. . ."
He faced a truth. "It was just. . . vanity!"
There was still a shade of doubt in her face, a wistfulness.
Presently she spoke.
514
