“Of not such significance!” poor Damier cried. “I am to find you in heaven, then!”
“Probably.” She did smile now, but he guessed that it was the brave smile she could summon over anguish. He guessed that her feeling of his boyishness was less apparent to her than her feeling of his power over her, his right to her. She might never yield to the power, never own to the right, but to guess that she felt them was assurance enough for the moment, and the pallor of the face that smiled at him was a reproach to him.
“No, no,” he said; “I shall keep you there—and I shall keep you here, too. I will rescue you. I will find out the way. And I will leave you now and give you peace for a little while. You are terribly tired.”
“Terribly,” she assented. “It is kind and generous of you to go now.”
“But my going is to be taken as no token of submission. I will return.”
“To say good-by.”
“So you say.”
“So you will do.” And she still smiled, all tenderness, all inflexibility.
“Never, never, never!” said Damier.