Mary Josephine settled his doubt.  With a happy little cry she ran to him, and Keith found her arms about him again and her lovely mouth held up to be kissed.  He hesitated for perhaps the tenth part of a second, if hesitation could be counted in that space.  Then his arms closed about her, and he kissed her.  He felt the snuggle of her face against his breast again, the crush and sweetness of her hair against his lips and cheek.  He kissed her again uninvited.  Before he could stop the habit, he had kissed her a third time.

Then her hands were at his face, and he saw again that look in her eyes, a deep and anxious questioning behind the shimmer of love in them, something mute and understanding and wonderfully sympathetic, a mothering soul looking at him and praying as it looked.  If his life had paid the forfeit the next instant, he could not have helped kissing her a fourth time.

If Mary Josephine had gone to bed with a doubt of his brotherly interest last night, the doubt was removed now.  Her cheeks flushed.  Her eyes shone.  She was palpitantly, excitedly happy.  “It’s you, Derry,” she cried.  “Oh, it’s you as you used to be!”

She seized his hand and drew him toward the table.  Wallie thrust in his head from the kitchenette, grinning, and Mary Josephine flashed him back a meaning smile.  Keith saw in an instant that Wallie had turned from his heathen gods to the worship of something infinitely more beautiful.  He no longer looked to Keith for instructions.

Mary Josephine sat down opposite Keith at the table.  She was telling him, with that warm laughter and happiness in her eyes, how the sun had wakened her, and how she had helped Wallie get breakfast.  For the first time Keith was looking at her from a point of vantage; there was just so much distance between them, no more and no less, and the light was right.  She was, to him, exquisite.  The little puckery lines came into her smooth forehead when he apologized for his tardiness by explaining that he had not gone to bed until one o’clock.  Her concern was delightful.  She scolded him while Wallie brought in the breakfast, and inwardly he swelled with the irrepressible exultation of a great possessor.  He had never had anyone to scold him like that before.  It was a scolding which expressed Mary Josephine’s immediate proprietorship of him, and he wondered if the pleasure of it made him look as silly as Wallie.  His plans were all gone.  He had intended to play the idiotic part of one who had partly lost his memory, but throughout the breakfast he exhibited no sign that he was anything but healthfully normal.  Mary Josephine’s delight at the improvement of his condition since last night shone in her face and eyes, and he could see that she was strictly, but with apparent unconsciousness, guarding herself against saying anything that might bring up the dread shadow between them.  She had already begun to fight her own fight for him, and the thing was so beautiful that he wanted to go round to her, and get down on his knees, and put his head in her lap, and tell her the truth.