to her in trivialities. He must say all or nothing.
"Lucky children," she said. "I wish I had someone to hear my prayers.—If I had, I might say some."
"I didn't hear them. I wasn't listening; I couldn't. Oh, Joyce, Joyce, there's so much I want to say, and your eyes keep interrupting me."
He thrilled a little at himself, and felt better. For he had his Moments: unforeseen felicities when he said the humorous and necessary word: and when his Moments came he could not help gloating over them. She gloated too, for she relished that innocent glee when he congratulated his own mind. When himself was his own guest of honour, and he stood genially at the front door.
So she smiled. What other woman could ever reward a lucky phrase with such magic of wistful applause?
"I apologize for them. They didn't mean to be rude."
She was so young and straight in her plain frock, so blessedly unconscious of herself. He thought of her fine strong body, the ungiven body that was so much her own, near him again after all the miracles of life that divide flesh from flesh and then bring it again within grasp; her sweet uncommanded beauty, irrelevant perhaps, yet so
