"I don't think I will, Roger. Not till I know more about it. I don't believe in jumping in and out of things."
Roger looked away. He felt that he had again been caught in the cloud of dust. Anne smoked her cigarette and lit a second. Only by this extraordinary act could she bring herself to the point she had decided upon that afternoon. When it was smoked quite through, she said calmly:
"Why don't you go and see Tom O'Connell?"
"What?" he echoed stupidly.
"Why not? Your sympathies are with him."
Now that Anne had worded it, Roger recognized the longing he had been stifling for weeks. To do something he believed in with his whole soul. His eyes softened and coming quickly about the table he knelt beside her.
"Princess," he whispered, "you're the most wonderful thing in the world."
Anne looked down into Roger's eyes and wondered. Why did he think it wonderful for her to suggest this thing that she had felt in him for weeks? Had he been waiting for her to do so? Why? What would he have done if she had not?
Before her quiet, searching look, Roger's eyes fell.
"Forgive me, honey," he whispered.