“Please.”
He was preparing to hoist himself out of his chair with the cigarette-case and matchbox, but she sprang up and came to him. “You can’t give yourself these luxuries of convention,” she smiled, rather as if at an unruly patient. “You must let me wait on you, rather. At all events, till you get more used to it. Dear old Bevis. You’re so brave that one forgets all about it.”
She leaned over him, while he gave her a light, and then, the match having gone out in his rather unsteady fingers, leaned still nearer to light his cigarette from hers. But, gently, he laid his hands upon her arms and held her there, looking closely into her eyes. “Do you love me?” he asked.
Her cigarette was between her lips. She could not answer. He released one hand so that she might free herself, and although the gesture might have brought an element of mirth into their gravity she sought no refuge in it. Half leaning, half kneeling beside him, she made no attempt to draw away and he saw her eyes widen in their grief, their perplexity, and their delight. “I don’t know, Bevis dear. I don’t know. How can I know?” she almost wept.
“You do know. I can tell you that you know, for I do. You love me.” He had laid his hold again upon her and he slightly shook her as he spoke.
“I can’t. I can’t. You must let me wait. You must give me time.”
“All the time you want. I’ve nothing to do but go on waiting. I’m ready for it. But don’t be too cruel. What do you gain by it?”
“I don’t mean to be cruel. Please believe that; please do.”
“You don’t mean it; but you are. It’s enough for you to have me here, waiting, and making love to you, day after day, month after month, as I did in London. I understand it all. You keep him like that, and you keep me. And what torments you is that you can’t see how you can keep us both if you give me more.”
“Oh—Bevis. You are so horrible. So horribly clear. You are far, far clearer than I can ever be. Yet—no, that’s not all there is to it. Give me time to think. I told you that I should think better up here, in his home—with you to help me. I can only think clearly if I’m given time.”