“I’m thinking about you. I wouldn’t’ve started this if I hadn’t’ve been thinking about you. It’s because of you that I want you and me to go on. I think you and I could go on—”
I got up. It was no use. I couldn’t put it over. I guess I regretted being what I was for the first time in my life. I regretted all the other dames. I regretted almost everything.
I went over to the window and looked out. The silence in the room made me think of a church. Then she said, “Nick….” She Was crying.
I went over to her and put my arms round her. I didn’t say anything. I just put my arms round her and held her. She cried against my silk dressing-gown. I could feel her body trembling.
“Be kind to me,” she said. “We are going to have a strange life together.”
When she said that, I felt good. It was like coming through a bad storm, shutting the door on the wind and the rain and knowing that it was quiet inside.
I shifted my position so that I lay beside her, and she put her head on my shoulder. Her soft hair touched my face and I held both her hands in mine.
When she had stopped crying and was quite calm again, I said, “Suppose we go an’ get married quick? Would you like that?”
She stayed so still, after I had said that, that I thought she had not heard me, but I just waited, wondering how it would all come out and if she really wanted me. She sighed then, and relaxed.
“Would you say a thing like that if you didn’t really mean it?” she said at last, leaning away from me so that she could look up at my face. Her eyes were very bright and her lips were parted, and behind the brightness of her eyes I could see she was scared.