"Even nights like this?" he said. "For that's when it'll be the hardest!" "Especially nights like this!" she cried, opening her arms with a feeling of glorification. "Tell me something," he said slowly; "and be honest with me!" "I swear I always will," she said impulsively from her heart, devoutly believing it. "Are you in love now?" "Yes!" "Are you sure?" His arm, as if suddenly aware of her body, removed itself. He bent toward her, striving to see her face. An instant before, she had sworn to herself, swiftly, in the exultation of a new-born spiritual self, that to this man, at least, she would never lie; and all at once, by the divining charity of her woman's soul, bent on saving him, she began her first deception! "No; I am not--sure!" She had a quick fear that he would spoil everything by an overt movement, and shrank from him, conscious of the male and of her sex. But at the end he rose quietly, saying: "All right, Dodo. The fight's begun!" If there were a double meaning in his words, he gave no sign of it. He went to the front and cranked the car, then drew the rug about her with solicitous deference, that had in it a new attitude. He did not even offer his hand to seal the compact, and for that, too, she was profoundly thankful, watching him with slanted approving glances. "Whatever he does he will do magnificently!" she thought. "Comfy?" he asked in a matter-of-fact tone. "Yes!" They shot out into the white road. He did not ask her wish, but, as if sure of her acquiescence, went flying into the country, at times with magnificent ease, at others with wild bursts of speed, break-a-neck, the monster obeying the fierce exultant moods of the master. She lay back in the seat, her eyes on the jagged tree-line, where broken shadows spun past her, and the stars swam overhead. She felt his mood in every glide, in every resentful bound, knowing what was in his spirit, uplifted into a new manifestation, resolved, whatever happened, that to this one, at least, she would give the divine that was in her. It was three o'clock by the paling of the dawn in the east, and the slinking scavengers in the streets, when they returned. She fell almost instantly to sleep, for the first time in long weeks. And as she tucked her hand under her cheek contentedly, in perfect peace, she had a satisfied feeling that God, her inscrutable friend, had not been so angry with her as she had believed; that in the moment of her failing He had shown her this way out. She did not question her feelings toward this new man. Pity? Yes, a great compassion, a tenderness and a sure belief in his protection, all were confusedly in her mind; but above all a great fatigue, and a wonder how the night would remain in the beating clarity of the day. CHAPTER XVIII