"How they used to be," Jeff repeated thoughtfully. He sounded stupid standing there and able, apparently, to do nothing better than repeat. "How was that? How do you understand they used to be?"
Reardon lost patience. You could afford to, evidently, with so numb an antagonist.
"Why, you know," he said. "You remember how things used to be."
Jeff looked full at him now, and there was a curious brightness in his eyes.
"I don't," he said. "I should have said I did, but now I hear you talk I give you my word I don't. You'll have to tell me."
"She never blamed you," said Reardon expansively. He was beginning to pity Jeff, the incredible density of him, and he spoke incautiously. "She understood the reasons for it. You were having your business worries and you were harassed and nervous. Of course she understood. But that didn't prevent her from being afraid of you."
"Afraid of me!" Jeff took a step forward and put one hand on a pillar of the porch. The action looked almost as if he feared to trust himself, finding some weakness in his legs to match this assault upon the heart. "Esther afraid of me?"
Reardon, feeling more and more benevolent, dilated visibly.
"Most natural thing in the world. You can see how it would be. I suppose her mind keeps harking back, going over things, you know; and here you are on the same street, as you might say."
"No," said Jeff, stupidly, as if that were the case in point, "it isn't the same street."