‘But I don’t want to make you feel an idiot, Kingston darling. It is sweet to hear you say how much you--care about me. It seems to make my whole life seem warm and comfortable. Never leave off feeling as you do. I think I am always glad to know you feel like that, and I--well, I do enjoy hearing you tell me so from time to time. But in the daylight, somehow, it seems undignified and--a little common, to exchange rhapsodies. And yet I love to think the rhapsodies are there. And--don’t you find it makes them more precious to keep them rare--yes?’ To Kingston a feeling unexpressed was apt, sooner or later, to degenerate into atrophy. But in the warmth of the moment he entered into Gundred’s point of view. Her reserves seemed beautiful and well bred by the side of his deliberate recollection of Isabel and her leaping, uncontrolled enthusiasms. ‘Perhaps you are right, you exquisite thing,’ he answered. ‘But now and then you ought to let me speak. I must tell you now and then, in word as well as in deed, that you are the most exquisite thing in the world, the most dainty, the most well-finished, the most adorable thing in the whole world. Altogether without a fault or a blemish you are, like a clear polished jewel; one is for ever seeing a fresh facet of your perfection.’ ‘Oh, Kingston, you really mustn’t say such things. It can’t be right. I am sure you are flattering me.’ ‘Ah, that is your usual answer. You always cut me short whenever I try to tell you what I feel for you. You make love seem silly and indecent. You are always trying to nip it in the bud.’ Gundred hesitated. Then she smiled. ‘Well, Kingston dear,’ she said, ‘I have not had to nip it in the bud so often lately--no? You have not given me the chance so very often.’ ‘One gets tired of being rebuffed and chilled and made to feel a demonstrative, tiresome fool.’ ‘Not tiresome, darling. And, Kingston, whatever I say, you--you--well, you need not always pay _quite_ so much attention to it, need you? One sometimes says a thing because one ought to, not because one means it--yes? I don’t think I am always quite such a chilly fish as you seem to imagine. You must not always judge by what one says. I--well, I love everything you say and do, dear. Don’t ever leave off because you think I don’t approve. I do, Kingston, whatever I may say--I approve, because it is you. Only you must not expect me to say so in the daytime, with the sun showing up everything, and servants all over the place. I hardly like to say it, even here in the dark, with nobody to see. It seems to put me into your power too much.’