“I’ve been trying to tell you something.”
“Where did Mr. Martin go? Wasn’t he there?”
“I didn’t see him.”
They turned toward the house. Its dark shadow hung over them, clear, impalpable, black as charcoal. They felt purified by mutual confession and charity.
“I think it was the house listening to us,” she said. “Why am I so happy?”
He knew that he loved her. It was not lust, for though he desired her and a thousand times had had her in his heart, yet he shrank from possession, fearing it might satiate this passion that was so dear. So it was a fool’s love: perhaps a coward’s, since to be taken is every woman’s need. But who shall say? Life is a foreign language: all men mispronounce it.
He loved her, for he saw the spirit of life in her. He loved her as a dream, as something he himself had created, as someone who had helped to create part of him. He loved her because it was secret, hopeless, impossible. He had loved her because he could not have her: and now she was here for his arms. The Dipper and the wind in the pine trees said, Poor fool, if you want her, take her. The black flap in the sky, where the starry pinning has fallen out (it opens into the law of gravity) said, It concerns only yourselves, no one will know. The tide and the whistling sand dunes said, She’s yours already.
From the sleeping porch over their heads he heard one of the children cough.
“George,” she whispered, “I’ll do whatever you tell me.”
He turned to her. “I’d like to see any one laugh at locksmiths.”