Again Helen's voice came to him after a pause, and it seemed now to grope, stupefied and uncertain, for answers to his absurdity. 'How can one argue, Gerald, like this; perhaps it was because I told you? Perhaps——'
He took her up, not waiting to hear her surmises. 'How can one get over a thing like that, all in a moment? How can it die like that? You're not over it, not really. It is all pride, and you are punishing me for what I couldn't help, and punishing yourself too, for no one will ever love you as I do. O Helen—I can't believe it's dead. Don't you know that no one will ever love you as I do? Can't you see how happy we could have been together? It's so silly of you not to see. Yes, you are silly as well as cruel.' He shook her while he held her, while he buried his face and cried—cried, literally, like a baby.
She stood still, enfolded but not enfolding, and now she said nothing for a long time, while her eyes, with their strained look of pain, gazed widely, and as if in astonishment, before her; and he, knowing only the silence, the unresponsive silence, continued to sob his protestation, his reproach, with a helplessness and vehemence ridiculous and heart-rending.
Then, slowly, as if compelled, Helen put her arms around him, and, dully, like a creature hypnotised to action strange to its whole nature, she said once more, and in a different voice: 'Don't cry, Gerald.' But she, too, was crying. She tried to control her sobs; but they broke from her, strange and difficult, like the sobs of the hypnotised creature waking from its trance to confused and painful consciousness, and, resting her forehead on his shoulder, she repeated dully, between her sobs: 'Don't cry.'
He was not crying any longer. Her weeping had stilled his in an instant, and she went on, between her broken breaths: 'How absurd—oh, how absurd. Sit down here—yes—keep your head so, if you must, you foolish, foolish child.'
He held her, hearing her sobs, feeling them lift her breast, and, in all his great astonishment, like a smile, the memory of the other day stole over him, the stillness, the accomplishment, the blissful peace, the lifting to a serene eternity of space. To remember it now was like seeing the sky from a nest, and in the sweet darkness of sudden security he murmured: 'You are the foolish child.'
'How can I believe you love me?' said Helen.
'How can you not?'
They sat side by side, her arms around him and his head upon her breast. 'It was only because I told you——'
'Well—isn't that reason enough?'