"Would you advise me to try?"
"It isn't a matter I could give advice about. I'm showing you what might be possible, but—"
"No, no. That sort of thing doesn't work. There was just a chance that Evie might have stuck to me spontaneously but since she didn't—"
"Since she didn't—what?"
"She was quite right not to. I admit that. It's in the order of things. She followed her instinct rather than her heart—I'm ready to believe that—but there are times in life when instinct is a pretty good guide."
"Am I to understand that you're not—hurt?—or disappointed? Because in that case—"
"I don't know whether I am or not. That's frank. I'm feeling so many things all at once that I can hardly distinguish one emotion from another, or tell which is strongest. I only know—it's become quite plain to me—that a little creature like Evie couldn't find a happy home in my life, any more than a humming-bird, as you once called her, could make its nest among crags."
"Do you mean by that," she asked, slowly, "that you're—definitely—letting her go?"
"I mean that, Evie being what she is, and I being what life has made me—Isn't it perfectly evident? Can you fancy us tied together—now?"
"I never could fancy it. I haven't concealed that from you at any time. But since you loved her, and she loved you—"