Her fingers gripped his tightly.  The soft glow in her eyes faded away.  A look of fear leapt into them and her face went suddenly white.  He drew her nearer, until her hands were against his breast.

“Don’t look like that,” he whispered.  “Nothing can hurt you.  Nothing in the world.  See—­I must do this to bring your colour back, or they will guess something is wrong!”

He bent and kissed her on the lips.

Adare’s voice burst out happily: 

“Good boy, Philip!  Don’t be bashful when we’re around.  That’s the first time I’ve seen you kiss your wife!”

There was none of the white betrayal in Josephine’s cheeks now.  They were the colour of the rose in her hair.  She had time to look up into Philip’s face, and whisper with a laughing break in her voice: 

“Thank you, Philip.  You have saved me again.”

With Philip’s hand in hers she turned to her father and mother.

“Philip wants to scold me, Mon Pere,” she said.  “And I cannot blame him.  He has seen almost nothing of me to-day.”

“And I have been scolding Miriam because they have given me no chance with the baby,” rumbled Adare.  “I have seen him but twice to-day—­the little beggar!  And both times he was asleep.  But I have forced them to terms, Philip.  From to-morrow I am to have him as much as I please.  When they want him they will find him in the big room.”

Josephine led Philip to her mother, who had seated herself on one of the divans.

“I want you to talk with Philip, Mikawe,” she said.  “I have promised father that he should have a peep at the baby.  I will bring him back very soon.”

Philip seated himself beside Miriam as Adare and Josephine left the room.  He noticed that her hair was dressed like Josephine’s, and that in the soft depths of it was partly buried a rose.

“Do you know—­I sometimes think that I am half dreaming,” he said.  “All this seems too wonderful to be true—­you, and Josephine, almost a thousand miles out of the world.  Even flowers like that which you wear in your hair—­hot-house flowers!”

There was a strange sweetness in Miriam’s smile, a smile softened by something that was almost pathetic, a touch of sadness.

“That is the one thing we keep alive out of the world I used to know—­roses,” she said.  “The first roots came from my babyhood home, and we have grown them here for more than twenty years.  Of course Josephine has shown you our little hot-house?”

“Yes.” lied Philip.  Then he added, finding her dear eyes resting on him steadily.  “And you have never grown lonesome up here?”

“Never.  I am sorry that we ever went back into that other world, even for a day.  This has been paradise.  We have always been happy.  And you?” she asked suddenly.  “Do you sometimes wish for that other world?”

“I have been out of it four years—­with the exception of a short break.  I never want to go back.  Josephine has made my paradise, as you have made another man’s.”