She pressed his hand. "Can it be over so soon?"
"Over? It has just begun, Claire. Have you forgotten?... From the same cup!"
"Joy or sorrow," she repeated.
He led her back a short distance. They withdrew into the shelter of a twisted acacia that seemed determined to escape from the imprisonment of its squalid garden. She leaned against the fence.
"Ah, Claire!" she heard him say, and she felt the shadow of his upraised arms fall upon her, "can you not picture our life together?... All the brave things to do and accomplish?... This is as I have always dreamed it—to share even my workday with my wife. To share my poverty with her. To share my aspirations. Come, what is your answer?"
She raised her brimming eyes to his. "Yes," she answered.
He put his fingers to her temples and drew her face toward him. "My wife!" he said, simply. And he let his lips fall upon her hair.
What had she come to talk about? Problems?... her mother?... her duties?... How absurd, when nothing else mattered but just this ... nothing else in the whole wide world!
They walked slowly to the brow of the hill.
"If every one could be as happy!" escaped her.