"Oh! I'm so safe with you, Peter dear," she had
cried to him.
He loved those evenings when they were alone and she would sit on the floor
with her head on his knee and her hand against his. Then suddenly she would
lean back and pull his head down and kiss his eyes, and then very slowly
let him go. And the fierceness, the passion of her love for him roused
in him a strength of devotion that all the years of unhappiness had been
storing. He was still only a boy--the first married year brought his
twenty-seventh birthday--but his love for Clare had the depth and reserve
that belongs to a man.
Mrs. Launce, watching them both, was sometimes frightened. "God help them
both if anything interferes," she said once to her husband. "I've seen that
boy look at Clare with a devotion that hurts. Peter's no ordinary mortal--I
wonder, now and again, whether Clare's worth it all."
But this year seemed to silence all her fears. The happiness of that
little house shone through Chelsea. "Oh, we're dining with the Westcotts
to-night--they'll cheer us up--they're always so happy"--"Oh! did you see
Clare Westcott? I never saw any one so radiant."
And once Bobby said to Alice: "We made a mistake, old girl, about that
marriage. It's made another man of Peter. He's joy personified."
"If only," Alice had answered, "destiny or whatever it is will let them
alone.
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