“Well, then. Astonished—why astonished?”
He looked at her. “Let’s call it,” he said, “the principle of the thing.”
Oh, now astonishment between them. Her voice, astounded, had an echo’s sound—faint, faint, scarcely to be heard, gone. “The prin-ci-ple!”
This room was lit, then, only by a standard lamp remote from where they were beside the fire. She was in a deep armchair; its partner, Harry’s chair, close by. He sat himself on the arm, looking towards her. The firelight made shadows on his face.
She presently murmured, her voice as though that echo, lost, was murmuring back, “Oh, it is I that am astonished now. The principle! It’s like a ghost. Harry, how possibly can there come between us the principle?”
His voice was deep, “Are we afraid of it, old girl?”
She put out a hand and touched him and he touched her hand. They were such lovers still. That was the thing about it. There never had been an issue between them, not the smallest; the bloom of their first union never had dissipated, not a rub. But there was in Harry the intention now to take her, and there was in her the apprehension now of being taken, to a new dimension of conversation, not previously trod by them. As they proceeded it was seen not to be light in this place; a place where touch might be lost.
She said, “But to bring up the principle in this! It can’t be possible you’ve changed. It isn’t conceivable to me that you have changed. Then how the principle?”
“It is the situation that has changed, Rosalie. It never occurred to me; I never dreamt or imagined that a thing like this could arise.”
She moved in her chair. “Oh, this goes deep....”