Rosamund knew how it must help her to confide. “Tell me if you will,” she said. “I am glad you loved him, if it has not hurt you too much. You understand, don’t you, that I must be glad—for him?”
“Yes, oh, yes; I understand. How beautiful of you to see it all!—Even though it’s so little, it is his; something he did; and so you must care. But I don’t think there’s much to tell; nothing about him that you don’t know.”
“About you, then. About what he was to you.”
“That would simply be my whole life,” said Pamela. “It’s so wonderful of you to understand and not to blame me. So many people would have thought it wrong; but it came before I knew what it was going to be, and I never can feel that it was wrong. He never knew. And even if he had, it couldn’t have made any difference. It must be because of that that I can tell you. If you hadn’t been so happy, if it hadn’t been so perfect—for you and him—I don’t think that I could have told. I should just have rushed away when you came in and hidden from you.”
“Why?” asked Rosamund after a moment. She heard something in her own voice that Pamela would not hear.
“I don’t quite know why,” said Pamela; “but don’t you feel it too? Perhaps if it hadn’t been so perfect, even my little outside love might have hurt you—or troubled you—to hear about. But I see now that you are the only person in the world who could care to hear. It is a comfort to tell you. I am so glad you came.” Pamela turned her eyes upon her and it was almost with her smile. “When I see you like this I can believe that he is here, listening with you, and sorry for me, too.”
How like an evening primrose she was! Rosamund could see her clearly now: the candid oval of the face, the eyes, the innocent, child forehead with thick, fair hair falling across it.
“Yes. Go on,” she said, smiling back.
She was not worthy of Pamela, and poor Charlie was not worthy of her; but no human being is worthy of a flower. And though so innocent, she was not stupid; subtlety like a fragrance was about her as she said, “You can comfort me because you have so much to comfort with.”
“So much grief, or so much remembered happiness?”