“Norah, you’re not fond of me, are you?” he asked, incredulously.

“You clever boy, you ask such stupid questions.”

“Oh, my dear, it never struck me that you could be.”

He flung his arms round her and kissed her, while she, laughing, blushing, and crying, surrendered herself willingly to his embrace.

Presently he released her and sitting back on his heels looked at her curiously.

“Well, I’m blowed!” he said.

“Why?”

“I’m so surprised.”

“And pleased?”

“Delighted,” he cried with all his heart, “and so proud and so happy and so grateful.”

He took her hands and covered them with kisses.  This was the beginning for Philip of a happiness which seemed both solid and durable.  They became lovers but remained friends.  There was in Norah a maternal instinct which received satisfaction in her love for Philip; she wanted someone to pet, and scold, and make a fuss of; she had a domestic temperament and found pleasure in looking after his health and his linen.  She pitied his deformity, over which he was so sensitive, and her pity expressed itself instinctively in tenderness.  She was young, strong, and healthy, and it seemed quite natural to her to give her love.  She had high spirits and a merry soul.  She liked Philip because he laughed with her at all the amusing things in life that caught her fancy, and above all she liked him because he was he.

When she told him this he answered gaily: 

“Nonsense.  You like me because I’m a silent person and never want to get a word in.”

Philip did not love her at all.  He was extremely fond of her, glad to be with her, amused and interested by her conversation.  She restored his belief in himself and put healing ointments, as it were, on all the bruises of his soul.  He was immensely flattered that she cared for him.  He admired her courage, her optimism, her impudent defiance of fate; she had a little philosophy of her own, ingenuous and practical.

“You know, I don’t believe in churches and parsons and all that,” she said, “but I believe in God, and I don’t believe He minds much about what you do as long as you keep your end up and help a lame dog over a stile when you can.  And I think people on the whole are very nice, and I’m sorry for those who aren’t.”

“And what about afterwards?” asked Philip.

“Oh, well, I don’t know for certain, you know,” she smiled, “but I hope for the best.  And anyhow there’ll be no rent to pay and no novelettes to write.”

She had a feminine gift for delicate flattery.  She thought that Philip did a brave thing when he left Paris because he was conscious he could not be a great artist; and he was enchanted when she expressed enthusiastic admiration for him.  He had never been quite certain whether this action indicated courage or infirmity of purpose.  It was delightful to realise that she considered it heroic.  She ventured to tackle him on a subject which his friends instinctively avoided.