"Neither do I, when I try to put it into words."
Anne threaded her needle in the silence that followed and bent again over the hem. Bent so, with the light gilding to the cool fairness of her, Roger's clear-cut decision of the last few weeks clouded. Surely nothing so physically exquisite as Anne could be empty of beauty within.
"If—neither—of us knows," he went on, "it—can't be terribly serious—can it?"
"Then why are we talking about it?" Anne asked stiffly.
"But what is it? We—we both feel it and yet you say you don't know either. But you feel it, as well as I. Something we used to have is gone."
"Yes. I feel it. We haven't really anything at all," she added, as if facing a fact Roger had avoided.
"I tried to keep it," he said bitterly. "I tried desperately for a long time."
"Did you?"
"Yes, I did. But one can't do those things alone." This was not what he had meant to say, but Anne was looking at him with such cool composure, so safe from all touch of blame in her small assurance of having done all in her power.
"No, of course not. One can't do all the understanding—alone."