Audrey gave him courage to go on. He left their comradely hours together
better and stronger. All the week centered about that one hour, out
of seven days, when he stood on her hearth-rug, or lay back in a deep
chair, listening or talking--such talk as Natalie might have heard
without resentment.

Some times he felt that that one hour was all he wanted; it carried so
far, helped so greatly. He was so boyishly content in it. And then she
would make a gesture, or there would be, for a second, a deeper note
in her voice, and the mad instinct to catch her to him was almost
overwhelming.

Some times he wondered if she were not very lonely, not knowing that
she, too, lived for days on that one hour. She was not going out,
because of Chris's death, and he knew there were long hours when she sat
alone, struggling determinedly with the socks she was knitting.

Only once did they tread on dangerous ground, and that was on her
birthday. He stopped in a jeweler's on his way up-town and brought her a
black pearl on a thin almost invisible chain, only to have her refuse to
take it.

"I can't Clay!"

"Why not?"

"It's too valuable. I can't take valuable presents from men."

"It's value hasn't anything to do with it."

"I'm not wearing jewelry, anyhow."