“You treat it as a jest—at such a time.”
“When I am earnest you won’t take me seriously—you won’t take me at all! indeed, it seems. But in any case you can’t travel with a man who looks like a tramp. I am going, as I was saying, to try and get clean again.”
She turned then, and there was neither pain nor surprise on her face, only relief and intense gladness.
“I thought you were in earnest.” It was only a smiling reproach.
“I am always in earnest where you are concerned.” I took a step or two towards her. “And you are glad?”
“I am ashamed of my weakness.”
“A weakness of which such a smile as that is a fitting confession.”
“I hate myself for being weak at all,” she cried in protest.
“It would be worse if you hated the cause of it. But now it is my turn to be weak, and to lean on you. I have no clothes to travel in.”
“We can help you there. We have many disguises here.”