Amaldi said in a constrained voice:
"I was not speaking of you, but of myself. I don't think that you can imagine how intensely I want to be a real friend to you. As I said, not to fail you...."
"And you think," she returned, her lips again quivering, "that I would take your friendship at such cost to you? You think I'm as selfish ... as unfeeling as that?"
Amaldi looked at her almost indignantly. "You know I think nothing but the highest of you," he said. Then his voice shook, the look in his eyes changed. "Forgive me...." he said. "It's I who am selfish."
But Sophy couldn't speak. She put up one hand to shield her face from him, and he saw that her wedding ring was gone. He flushed, struggled with himself; then, going close to her, he said in a vehement whisper:
"I will be what you want ... only what you want. And if the time comes when ... when I find I can't hold out ... I will tell you, and go away."
Still she could not speak. She held out her other hand to him in silence. The tears were running over down her face.
He took her hand, hesitated a moment; then lifted it to his lips.
"I swear that I will be your true friend," he said.
She put up the hand that he had kissed with the other, over her face.