“I’m not sure that I understand.”
“Bother! Why d’you force me to be so explicit? Take the case of Nan—she’s one of thousands. She’s got nothing of her own—no freedom, no money, no anything. She’s always under orders; she’s not expected to have any plans for her future. She creeps to the windows of the world and peeps out when her father isn’t near enough to prevent her. Unless she marries, she’ll always be prying and never sharing. She’s a Lady of Shalott, shut up in a tower, weaving a web of fancies. She hears life tramp beneath her window, traveling in plume and helmet to the city. Unless a man frees her, she’ll never get out.—Oh, I oughtn’t to talk like this; I never have, to anyone except to Nan. Why do you make me? Now that it’s said, I hate myself.”
“Don’t do that.” He spoke gently. “I’m glad you’ve done it. You’ve made me see further. We men always look at things from our own standpoint.—I suppose we’re selfish.”
He waited for her to deny that he was selfish.
“There’s no doubt about it,” she affirmed.
They paddled on in silence till they came to the lasher. Together they hauled the punt over the rollers—there was no one about. When it had taken the water on the other side, Jehane stepped in quickly; while his hands and thoughts were unoccupied, she was afraid to be near him. He stood on the bank, holding the rope to keep the punt from drifting; his head was flung back and he did not stir. Through the network of branches moonlight drifted, making willows, gnarled and twisted, and water, rushing foam-streaked from the lasher, eerie and fantastic. He was thinking of Nan and the meaning of her crying.
“Miss Usk, it was very brave of you to speak out.”
She laughed perversely; she was so afraid of revealing her emotion. “You must have queer notions about me. I’ve been terribly unconventional.”
They drifted down stream through Mesopotamia, pursued by the sandal-footed silence. When Barrington spoke to her now, it was as though there lay between them a secret understanding. What that understanding was she scarcely dared to conjecture. Here, alone with him in the moon-lit faery-land of shadows, she was supremely at peace with herself.
At Magdalen Bridge they tethered the punt; it was too late to return to the barges.