He took his cigarette up in his fingers, turned it about a little, and then looked suddenly straight at her. "Alva, tell me the mystery, tell me the story, please. What is the house for?"
She looked at him and was silent.
"Why won't you tell me?"
Still silence. Still she looked at him.
"You'll tell her when she comes. Why not me?"
She spoke then: "She'll be able to understand, perhaps. You couldn't."
Ingram compressed his lips. "And am I so awfully dense?" he asked, half hurt.
"Not so dense, but, as yet, too ignorant. Or else it is that I am still too little myself to be able to rise above some human sentiments. And there is one point where endurance of the world's opinion is such refinement of torture, that only the very strongest and greatest can go willingly forward to meet and suffer the inevitable. The inevitable is close to me these days; it is approaching closer hourly, and there is no possible way for me to make you or the world understand how I feel in regard to it all. And I shrink from facing the kind of thing that I shall soon have to face any sooner than is absolutely necessary. And so I won't tell you."
She stopped. Although her voice was firm, her eyes had again become far away in their expression, and she seemed almost to have forgotten him even while making this explanation for his sake. He was watching her with deepest interest, and the curiosity in his eyes burned more brightly than ever.
"But if it is all as terrible as you make out," he said, "how can you make that young girl understand what you suppose to be so far beyond me?"