"
"In my case, that would not be true," he answered. "My trouble is that I
dare not say one half of what I feel."
She looked across the table at him, and Nigel suddenly felt a great
weight of depression lifted from his heart. He forgot all about his
country's peril. Life and its possibilities seemed somehow all
different. He was carried away by a rare wave of emotion.
"Naida!" he whispered.
"Yes?"
Her eyes were soft and expectant. Something of the gravity had gone from
her face. She was like a girl, suddenly young with new thoughts.
"You know what I am going to say to you?"
"Do not say it yet, please," she begged. "Somehow it seems to me that
the time has not come, though the thought of what may be in your heart
is wonderful. I want to dream about it first," she went on. "I want to
think."
He laughed, a strange sound almost to his own ears, for Nigel, since his
uncle's death, had tasted the very depths of depression.
"I obey," he agreed. "It is well to dally with the great things.
Meanwhile, they grow."
She smiled across at him.
"I hope that they may," she answered. "And you will ask me to lunch
again?"
"Lunch or dine or walk or motor--whatever you will," he promised.
She reflected for a moment and then laughed. She was drawing on her
gloves now, and Nigel was paying the bill.
"There are some people who will not like this," she said.
"And one," he declared, "for whom it is going to make life a Paradise.
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