“Are you to be trusted?” she asked innocently.

“Yes, at last.  You know it.  Even if I——­”

“Yes, dear.”

She considered him with a new and burning curiosity.  It was the feminine in her, wondering, not yet certain, whether it might safely dare.

“I suppose I’ve made an anchorite out of you,” she ventured.

“You can judge,” he said, laughing; and had her in his arms again, and kissed her consenting lips and palms, and looked down into the sweet eyes; and she smiled back at him, confident, at rest.

“What has wrought this celestial change in you, Phil?” she whispered, listlessly humourous.

“What change?”

“The spiritual.”

“Is there one?  I seem to kiss you just as ardently.”

“I know. . . .  But—­for the first time since I ever saw you—­I feel that I am safe in the world. . . .  It may annoy me.”

He laughed.

“I may grow tired of it,” she insisted, watching him.  “I may behave like a naughty, perverse, ungrateful urchin, and kick and scream and bite. . . .  But you won’t let me be hurt, will you?”

“No, child.”  His voice was laughing at her, but his eyes were curiously grave.

She put both arms up around his neck with a quick catch of her breath.

“I do love you—­I do love you.  I know it now, Phil—­I know it as I never dreamed of knowing it. . . .  You will never let me be hurt, will you?  Nothing can harm me now, can it?”

“Nothing, Ailsa.”

She regarded him dreamily.  Sometimes her blue eyes wandered toward the stars, sometimes toward the camp fires on the hill.

“Perfect—­perfect belief in—­your goodness—­to me,” she murmured vaguely.  “Now I shall—­repay you—­by perversity—­misbehaviour—­I don’t know what—­I don’t know—­what——­”

Her lids closed; she yielded to his embrace; one slim, detaining hand on his shoulder held her closer, closer.

“You must—­never—­go away,” her lips formed.

But already he was releasing her, pale but coolly master of the situation.  Acquiescent, inert, she lay in his arms, then straightened and rested against the rail beside her.

Presently she smiled to herself, looked at him, still smiling.

“Shall we go into Dr. West’s office and have supper, Phil?  I’m on duty in half an hour and my supper must be ready by this time; and I’m simply dying to have you make up for the indignity of the kitchen.”

“You ridiculous little thing!”

“No, I’m not.  I could weep with rage when I think of you in the kitchen and—­and—­ Oh, never mind.  Come, will you?” And she held out her hand.

Her supper was ready, as she had predicted, and she delightedly made room for him beside her on the bench, and helped him to freshly baked bread and ancient tinned vegetables, and some doubtful boiled meat, all of which he ate with an appetite and a reckless and appreciative abandon that fascinated her.