"Oh, must I say that?" she asked languidly.
He laid her head back on the pillow tenderly.
"Why shouldn't you?" he demanded. "You do, or you wouldn't let me act this way. Oh, Claire, isn't that true?"
"Doesn't your own heart tell you, Philip?" She could not lie easily.
"Yes, of course. I just wanted to hear you say it, dear."
"Because--because it means so much to me."
"How does it mean any more than my unresisting lips?" She wanted to be fair to Philip. Would he want a wife without love?
He looked at her, puzzled by her calm question.
"Because, dear, it would mean that you put your seal on our divine betrothal."
"I gave you my lips, you held me in your arms, doesn't that mean love to you?"
"Yes, but you--you seem so unlike the woman you are."
"Oh, I see. But you haven't told me fully why you wanted me to say I loved you."
He stood up nervously and moved a few paces away, but the patient, self-reproachful gaze in Claire's eyes brought him back again.
"Why talk of that at all, dearest?" he whispered. "We have each other. Isn't that enough?"
"Perhaps not. You asked me to say it, you know."
"Yes, but I don't care. I won't plague you. I know you do love, me." He kissed her again and then looked at her. Her lips had been cold.
"What is the matter, Claire? Don't you love me? Is that why you wouldn't give me your word?"
It was coming at last. How could she make Philip see, and yet be fair to him, too?
"I don't know what you mean by love." Her voice was carefully toneless.
Philip's eyes lighted. "Don't you want me here beside you? Don't you warm to my kisses? Isn't there an awakened tenderness in you at my touch? Isn't there, dearest?"
Claire's hands moved nervously up and down the edge of the comforter. "If I should stay here with you, that would be the highest proof that I loved you, wouldn't it?"
"What else?" He looked at her, hope giving his face a renewed glow.
Was that all that love meant to him? "Is that what your years of thought have taught you?" she said aloud.
"Why, yes, Claire, the return of passion for passion, of warmth for warmth, of tenderness for tenderness, must be the last test, mustn't it?"
Despite her resolution her eyes narrowed ironically.
"Would you ever be jealous of my husband?" she asked, slowly.