But at any moment--day or night--at any elate emotional moment _ready_! She had the rare accomplishment of a perfect knowledge of _how to wait_, and to wait--if necessary--long.

When the first golden down had shown itself on his cheek and lip she had not noticed it too much and when his golden soprano voice began to change to a deeper note and annoyed him with its uncertainties she had spared him awkwardness by making him feel the transition a casual natural thing, instead of a personal and characteristic weakness.

She had loved every stage of innocence and ignorance and adorable silliness he had passed through and he had grown closer to her through the medium of each, because nothing in life was so clear as her lovely wiseness and fine perceptive entirety of sympathy and poise.
"I never have to explain really," he said more than once.

"You would understand even if I were an idiot or a criminal.

And you'd understand if I were an archangel." With a deep awareness she knew that, when she first realised that the shadow was rising, it would be different.