“You know that doesn’t matter. Time! Why, the first minute I saw you, there in that beastly school, I knew I was done for. You looked so lovely and so dignified. Such a lady. Just the sort of girl I’d always thought about. My lovely girl! My dear, beautiful girl!” For some reason her eyes filled with tears. His voice touched her so, moved her so profoundly. She couldn’t pretend, couldn’t hesitate. Because _she_ knew, too, perfectly well. She looked up at him with a trembling smile. “It’s silly!” she said. “We don’t know each other.” “I know _you_, darling, as well as if I’d seen you every day for a year.” “But, really, we must be sensible,” she said, seriously. “We’ll have to wait--not commit ourselves to anything definite. We’ll be friends----” “Not I! I _want_ to commit myself as much as possible. Won’t you commit yourself just a little bit, darling girl? Just go so far as to say you _like_ me?” “You know I like you,” she said, smiling. He could laugh now, tease her; he knew she was won. They left the tea-room and began to stroll down Fifth Avenue. And at every crossing he took her arm and their eyes met, and a ridiculous and passionate happiness filled them both. “_My_ girl!” he whispered. Frances was almost ashamed of being so happy; she was anxious to appear practical and reasonable. She said she had shopping to do, and that Lionel might come with her, if he liked. He insisted upon augmenting her little purchases, choosing very expensive things, and things he had realised she wanted. In spite of her independence, all this was delightful to her; she hesitated, refused, accepted.... A shop girl looked after them, was amused at their long, long glances and their unwarranted smiles: she thought them a well-matched couple, both so tall and so nice-looking and so well-bred. And she was very right; they were well-matched, by God Himself, Who had filled Lionel’s need of a strong and sober and honest lover, who had given to Frankie the gay and careless companion her heart required, the clinging and exigent affection she could so well support. Lionel had the power to soften the touch of austerity latent in her, the hint of priggishness; she had the nobility and the resoluteness which he needed as an example, a stimulus to his plastic soul. They had, in each other’s company, a sense of absolute completeness and satisfaction; they knew that this love was altogether _right_. Frances inspected the new pocketbook he had bought her, so unnecessarily and unsuitably costly, and then again at Lionel’s happy face. And she would have liked to cry out what she and all women know enough to conceal: “Oh, my love, I want to protect you, to care for you, to shield your raw pride, forever and ever to stand between you and the world!” And that mustn’t be said. She knew she must call his weakness strength, or she would destroy him. No man must ever see his true self mirrored in a woman’s eyes. He could not endure it. CHAPTER FOURTEEN I