"Could you—if I did?"
She tried to reflect. "It's the spirit," she said, haltingly, after a minute. "Oughtn't we to get at that?—just as he said. We've had so much of—of the letter."
"Ah, but what is the spirit? How do you get at it? That's the point."
She tried to reflect further—further and harder and faster. "Wouldn't it be—what we feel?"
"What we feel is that—that we love each other, isn't it?—that we love each other as much as we did years ago—more!—more! Isn't that it?"
She nodded. "Yes, more—oh, much more! And yet—"
"Yes?" he said, eagerly. "Yes? And what, then?"
"And yet—oh, Chip, I feel something else!" She leaned still further toward him, as if to annihilate the slight distance between them. "Don't you?"
"Something else—how?"
"Something else—higher—as if our loving each other wasn't the thing of most importance. I thought it was. All these years—I mean latterly—I've thought it was. When we met in England I was sure it was. Since I've been back with him I've felt that I would have died gladly just to have one more day with you, like those at Maidenhead and Tunbridge Wells. But now—oh, Chip, I don't know what to say!"