Apparently not. She had gone off into another paroxysm of sobs. He stood with this storm of loveliness clasped to his breast amazed and horrified. What was the matter with Helen? He had left her calm and happy at noon. He found her now in torrential tears. She must be ill.
He lifted her tenderly in his arms, strode down the hall to their room and deposited her on the bed.
“You will always love me, whatever happens?” she insisted, clinging to his hand.
He sat down beside her. He filled his lungs; he expanded himself. He must meet this emergency. “Helen, I could not live without loving you,” he exclaimed in a deep and powerful voice.
“But if nothing happens, if nothing ever happens?” she wailed.
He was speechless. When you are caught up without a moment’s notice and made to swear to every article of undying love, what else can you do? But she lay wilted, deadly pale, her eyes fixed upon him dolorously, as if he might be going to slay her with the next word. Therefore—
He did not finish thinking what he was about to think. A sort of shock passed through him, he caught his breath, looked off, the faintest shade of embarrassment in this look addressed to the ceiling, but not painful. On the contrary you might have inferred that this was a pleasurable confusion. He was instantly calmed, no longer disturbed about Helen. He stared at her politely as at an unknown but highly satisfactory phenomenon. He had no experience in a case like this, but he had instincts. Every young husband is a father, at least by anticipation. His impression was that she must be soothed, kept quiet.
He bent and kissed her gravely, as you kiss the Bible when you take an oath. “Don’t worry, my sweet; you will come around all right,” he told her.
She turned her face away, closed her eyes in tearful despair. He had not answered her question. He had evaded with soft words. This would never do. She was beginning to weep again. He said he would go to the phone and call her mother.
“Don’t call mother. She has been here all afternoon,” she cried.