“I came—because I must,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
She looked at him in doubt and wonder.
“I must ask,” she said.
He shook his head slightly.
“There is no answer,” he replied, with strange vacancy.
There was about him a curious, and almost godlike air of simplicity and native directness. He reminded her of an apparition, the young Hermes.
“But why did you come to me?” she persisted.
“Because—it has to be so. If there weren’t you in the world, then I shouldn’t be in the world, either.”
She stood looking at him, with large, wide, wondering, stricken eyes. His eyes were looking steadily into hers all the time, and he seemed fixed in an odd supernatural steadfastness. She sighed. She was lost now. She had no choice.
“Won’t you take off your boots,” she said. “They must be wet.”