"Well--that isn't at all a suitable reply to my remark. I wanted you to assure me that there was no need to be scared." "There isn't. What can I do for you? Ask and I shall grant it, even to the half of my kingdom." "When we get this job over may I come straight to you?" Elizabeth had no coyness in her nature, and she now turned her grey eyes--not mocking now but soft and shining--on the anxious face of her companion and said: "Indeed, my dear, you may. Just as straight as you can come, and I shall be waiting for you on the doorstep. It has taken a European war to make me realize it, but you are the only man in the world so far as I am concerned." Some time later Arthur said, "I'm going away extraordinarily happy. By Jove, I ought to be some use at fighting now"; and he laughed boyishly. "Oh, don't," said Elizabeth. "You've reminded me, and I was trying to make believe you weren't going away. I'm afraid--oh! Arthur, I'm horribly afraid, that you won't be allowed to come back, that you will be snatched from me----" "I may not come back," said Arthur soberly, "but I won't be snatched. You give me, and I give myself, willingly. But, Lizbeth, beloved, it isn't like you to be afraid." "Yes, it is. I've always been scared of something. When I was tiny it was the Last Day. I hardly dared go the afternoon walk with Leezie in case it came like a thief in the night and found me far from my home and parents. I walked with my eyes shut, and bumped into people and lamp-posts, because I was sure if I opened them I should see the Angel Gabriel standing on the top of a house with a trumpet in his hand, and the heavens rolling up like a scroll, and I didn't know about parchment scrolls and thought it was a _brandy-scroll_, which made it so much worse." "Oh! my funny Elizabeth!" Arthur said tenderly. "I wish I could have been there to see you; I grudge all the years I didn't know you." "Oh," said Elizabeth, "it wouldn't have been much good knowing each other in those days. I was about five, I suppose, and you would be nine. You would merely have seen a tiresome little girl, and I would have seen a superior sort of boy, and I should probably have put out my tongue at you. I wasn't a nice child; mine is a faulty and tattered past." "When did you begin to reform?" Arthur asked, "for it was a very sedate lady I found in Glasgow. Tell me, Lizbeth, why were you so discouraging to me then? You must have known I cared." "Well, you see, I'm a queer creature--affectionate but not very _loving_. I never think that 'love' is a word to use much if people are all well and things in their ordinary. And you were frightfully English, you can't deny it, and a monocle, and everything very much against you. And then Aunt Alice's intention of being a sort of fairy godmother was so obvious--it seemed feeble to tumble so easily in with her plans. But I suppose I cared all the time, and I can see now that it was very petty of me to pretend indifference."