“And then you made certain?”
He nodded. “You came to the window on Armistice night and stood for a few minutes looking out.”
“I remember.” She shivered as if a cold breath had struck her. “I was feeling stupid and lonely; all the world out there in the darkness seemed so glad. I wish you had rung my bell. That was three nights ago.”
“You mean why did I let three nights go by. I guess because I was a coward. I got what we call in America 'cold feet.' I thought...”
He waited for her to prompt him. She sat leaning forward, her hands lying idle in her lap. He noticed, as he had noticed nearly a year ago, the half-moon that her shoulders made in the dimness. She was extraordinarily motionless; her motionlessness gave her an atmosphere of strength. When she moved her gestures said as much as words. Nothing that she did was hurried.
“Tell me what you thought.” she said quietly. She spoke to him as she would have spoken to Robbie, making him feel very young and little. When she spoke like that there was not much that he would not have told her.
“I thought that you might not remember me or want to see me. We met so oddly; after the lapse of a year you might easily have regarded my call as an impertinence.”
“An impertinence!” There were tears in her eyes when she raised her head. “You lost your arm that I and my children might be safe, and you talk about impertinence.”
“Oh, that!” He glanced down at his empty sleeve. “That's nothing. It's the luck of the game and might have happened to anybody.”
“But you lost it for me,” she re-asserted, “that I might be safe. You must have suffered terribly.”