“Asleep, Gage?” She spoke softly, not to awaken him, if he were asleep. “No--resting--here by the window.” She found her way to him and he gathered her up in his arms. “You wonderful bundle of relaxation! Have you any idea how I love you like this?” “Do you know, Gage, I think that for all our bad moments that we are really happier than most people?” “There’s no one in the world, dear, as happy as I am at this moment.” “And it isn’t just because I’m--” He bent his head to her, stifling her sentence. “You mustn’t talk--don’t say it. It isn’t because of anything. It just is.” “I know. And when it is--it swallows up the times when it isn’t.” “Hush, sweetheart. Let’s not--talk. Let’s just rest.” He felt her grow even easier in his arms. All the instinct for poetry in him, starved, without vehicle, sought to dominate the relentlessness of her mind, working, working in its tangles of thought. The meaning of his inexpressible love for her must come through his arms, must be compelling, tender. They sat together in the big chair enfolded in peace. And the same little secret thought ran from one to the other, comforting them. This is the best. CHAPTER VI MARGARET I Margaret made the faintest little grimace of dismay at the long florist’s box for which she had just signed the receipt presented by the messenger. It wasn’t a grimace of displeasure but a puzzled look as if the particular calculation involved was an unresolved doubt. Then she cut the pale green string and lifted the flowers out. There were flowers for every corner, fresia, daffodils, narcissus--everything that the florist’s windows were blooming with during this second week of May. She touched them with delight, sorted them, placed them in every bit of crockery she could find. But Mrs. Thorstad sat in a chair drawn up before the mission oak table in Margaret’s little rented apartment and waited. She was impatient that the flowers should have come at a moment when their discussion hinged on a crisis. And as if her respect for Margaret had fallen a little, she eyed the display without appreciation. Margaret talked, as she placed the flowers, however, as if she could separate her mental reactions from her esthetic.