“Yes,” he answered. “It is about you. Tell me, Miss Black-Hair, do you never think of getting old?”
“No,” she smiled. “I shall wait until I am twenty-five before I begin to think of that.”
“But don’t you see that this sort of thing must stop sometime? It is unjust to you. When I think of it, I reproach myself for permitting us to get into it.”
“I am happy,” she said, looking straight at him, terror in her eyes.
“But you have no friends?”
“Who has? And what do I want with friends?”
“But don’t you see, I can’t introduce you to anybody. I can’t talk about you to the people I know. I am always having to explain you away, always having to act as if I were ashamed of this, my real life. At times I am Anglo-Saxon enough to be really ashamed of it. And I ought to be and am ashamed of myself.”
“Don’t let’s talk about it. You and I understand. Why should we bother about the rest of the world?”
“No, we must talk about it. I have been going over it carefully. We must—must be married.”
He laid his hand upon hers. She blushed deeply and lowered her head. A tear dropped upon the front of her gown and hung glittering in the meshes of the white lace. She crept into his arms and buried her face upon his shoulder and sobbed. He had never seen her even look like tears before.