"We have been talking about you, talking a great deal, since you left us, your guardian and I," Mr. Drew continued, and he looked at the one of Karen's hands that was visible, emerging from the shawl to clasp her elbow, the left hand with its wedding-ring, "and ludicrous as it may seem to you, I can't but feel that I understand you a great deal better than she does. She still thinks of you as a child—a child whose little problems can be solved by facile solutions. Forgive me, I know it may sound fatuous to you, but I see what she does not see, that you are a suffering woman, and that for some problems there are no solutions." His eyes now came back to hers and found them fixed on him with a wide astonished gaze.
"Has my guardian asked you to say anything to me?" she said.
"No, not exactly that," said Mr. Drew, a little disconcerted by her tone and look, while at the same time he was marvelling at the greater and greater beauty he found in the impassive moonlit face—how had he been so unconscionably stupid as not to see for so long how beautiful she was!—"No, she certainly hasn't asked me to say anything to you. She is going away, you know, to Italy; it's a sudden decision and she's been telling me about it. I can't go with her. I don't think it a good plan. I can stay on here, but I can't go to Italy. Perhaps she'll give it up. She didn't find me altogether sympathetic and I'm afraid we've had something of a disagreement. I am sure you've seen since you've been here that if your guardian doesn't understand you she doesn't understand me, either."
"But I cannot speak of my guardian to you," said Karen. She had kept her eyes steadily upon him waiting to hear what he might have to say, but now the thought of Tante in her rejected queenliness broke insufferably upon her making her sick with pity. This man did not love Tante. She rose as she spoke.
"Do not speak of her to me," she said.
"But we will not speak of her. I do not wish to speak of her," said Mr. Drew, also rising, a stress of excitement and anxiety making itself felt in his soft, sibilant, hurried tones; "I understand every exquisite loyalty that hedges your path. And I'm hedged, too; you see that. Wait, wait—please listen. We won't speak of her. What I want to speak of is you. I want to ask you to make use of me. I want to ask you to trust me. You love her, but how can you depend on her? She is a child, an undisciplined, capricious child, and she is displeased with you, seriously displeased. Who is there in the world you can depend on? You are unutterably alone. And I ask you to turn to me."
Her frosty scrutiny disconcerted him. He had not touched her in the least.
"These are things you cannot say to me," she said. "There is nothing that you can do for me. I only know you as my guardian's friend; you forgot that, I think, when you brought me here." She turned from him.
"Oh, but you do not understand! I have made you angry! Oh, please, Mrs. Jardine;" his voice rose to sharp distress. He caught her hand with a supplicating yet determined grasp. "You can't understand. You are so inconceivably unaware. It is because of you; all because of you. Haven't you really seen or understood? She can't forgive you because I love you. I love you, you adorable child. I have only stayed on and borne with her because of you!"
His passion flamed before her frozen face. And as, for a transfixed moment of stupor, she stood still, held by him, he read into her stillness the pause of the woman to whom the apple of the tree of life is proffered, amazed, afraid, yet thrilled through all her being, tempted by the very suddenness, incapable of swift repudiation. He threw his arms around her, taking, in a draught of delight, the impression of silvery, glacial loveliness that sent dancing stars of metaphor streaming in his head, and pressed his lips to her cheek.