wonderful Monsieur Champneys. She grew quite beautiful; her
eyes were a child's eyes, her face like one of those little sweet
pinkish-white roses one sees in old-fashioned gardens.

She had no relations; neither had Peter. And so he took Denise into
his life, just as he had once taken a lost kitten out of the dusk on
the Riverton Road: there really was nothing else for him to do! He
had for her something of the same whimsical and compassionate
affection that had made him share his glass of milk with the little
cat. She belonged to him; there was nobody else.

She was rather a silent creature, Denise. She had none of that Latin
vivacity which wearies the listener, but her love for him showed
itself in a thousand gracious ways, in innumerable small services,
in loving looks. Just to touch him was a never-failing joy to her.
She delighted to stroke his face, to trace with her small fingers
the outline of his features. "That is the pattern on the inside of
my heart," she told him. She had a quick, light tread, pleasant to
listen to, and her rare and lovely laughter was always a delicious
surprise, as if one heard an unexpected chime of little bells.

Her housewifely ways, her pretty anxiety about spending money,
amused him tenderly. When she could perform some small service for
him, she hummed little hymns to the Virgin. Her ministrations
extended to Stocks and the Checkleighs, whose shirts she mended so
expertly that they didn't have to borrow so many of Peter's. She was
so happy that Peter Champneys grew happy watching her. It hadn't
seemed possible to Denise that anybody like him could exist; yet
here he was, and she belonged to him!

Nobody had ever loved Peter Champneys in quite the same way. She had
so real and true a genius for loving that she exhaled affection as a
flower exhales perfume. Loving was an instinct with Denise. She
would steal to his side, slip her arm around his neck, kiss him on
the eyes--"thy beautiful eyes, Pierre!"--and cuddle her cheek
against his, with so exquisite a tenderness in touch and look that
the young man's kind heart melted in his breast. He couldn't speak.
He could only gather her close, pressing his black head against her
soft young bosom.

Her cruel experience with Dangeau was not forgotten; but that had
been capture by force, and she remembered it as a black background
against which the bright colors of this present happiness showed
with a heavenlier radiance. Peter himself d