She looked up at him with wet eyes and he felt the claim and the appeal of her piercing straight into his heart.

“I could care ...” she whispered.  “Are you sure, Peter?”

His arm tightened about her.  He hadn’t meant precisely what she had understood him to mean; at least, he hadn’t translated his purpose to help her to the uttermost into a specified relation, as she was doing; but if the purpose, to be fulfilled, had to be so translated, he was ready for that too.  So he said, “Quite sure, Rhoda.  I want to be the most to you that you’ll let me be,” and her face was hidden against his coat, and her tension relaxed utterly, and she murmured, “Oh, I can be safe like that.”

So they sat in silence together, between the lit sanctuary and the desolate night, and heard, as from a long way off, the sound of chanting:—­

  “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace:  according to thy
  word;

  “For mine eyes have seen ...”

Later on, Rhoda said, quiet and happy now, “I’ve thought you cared, Peter, for some time.  And last night, when I saw you hated Guy to be near me, I felt sure.  But I feel I’ve so little to give you.  So much of me is burnt away and spoilt.  But it’ll come back, Peter, I think, if you love me.  I do love you, very much; you’ve been such a dear to me always, from the very first night at the Palazzo, when you spoke to me and smiled.  Only I couldn’t think of anyone but Guy then.  But lately I’ve been thinking, ’Peter’s worth a hundred Guys, and if only I could care for him, I should feel safe.’  And I do care, ever so much; and if it’s a different sort of caring from what I’ve felt for Guy, it’s a better sort.  That’s a bad, black sort, that hurts; I never want any more of that.  Caring for you will keep me from that, Peter.”

“It’s dear of you to care for me at all,” said Peter.  “And we won’t let Guy come near us, now or ever.”

“You hate him, don’t you?” said Rhoda.  “I know you do.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know that it’s as bad as all that.  He’s more funny than anything else, it seems to me.  He might have walked straight out of a novel; he does all the things they do in books, you know, and that one never thinks people really do outside them.  He sneers insolently.  I watch him sometimes, to see how it’s done.  He curls his upper lip, too, when he’s feeling contemptuous; that’s another nice trick that I should like to acquire.  Oh, he’s quite an interesting study really.  You’ve taken him wrong, you know.  You’ve taken him seriously.  He’s not meant for that.”

“Oh,” said Rhoda, vaguely uncomprehending.  “You are a funny boy, Peter.  You do talk so....  I never know if you mean half you say.”

“About two-thirds, I think,” said Peter.  “The rest is lies.  We all lie in my family, and not well either, because we’re rather weak in the intellect....  Now do you feel like supper, because I do?  Let’s come home and have it, shall we?”