He might tear down with his claws,
and pull to pieces and devour others; but his mate he
would shelter and defend and love with all his strength.
An involuntary trembling thrill ran through her--and then she
smiled up at him.
"What is it you're going to do?" she asked him, mechanically.
Her mind roved far afield.
"Rule England!" he told her with gravity.
For the moment there seemed to her nothing positively
incongruous in the statement. To look at him, as he
loomed before her, uplifted by his refreshed and soaring
self-confidence, it appeared not easy to say what would
be impossible to him.
She laughed, after a fleeting pause, with a plainer note of
good-fellowship than he had ever heard in her voice before.
"Delightful," she said gayly. "But I'm not sure that I quite
understand the--the precise connection of morning-dress
and dinner in a small room with the project." He nodded
pleased comprehension of the spirit in which she took him.
"Just a whim," he explained. "The things I've got in mind
don't fit at all with ceremony, and that big barn of a room,
and men standing about. What I want more than anything
else is a quiet snug little evening with you alone, where I
can talk to you and--and we can be together by ourselves.
You'd like it, wouldn't you?"
She hesitated, and there was a novel confession of
embarrassment in her mantling colour and down-spread lashes.
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