"Of course, if you say that, I must do it," he says.
"Don't do it on my account," with a wilful air.
"No, on my own, of course."
"Well, remember I don't ask you to do it," with the most disgraceful ingratitude. "Do as you wish about it."
"Your wishes are mine," he says, tenderly. "I have had no divided existence since that first day I saw you,—how long ago it seems now——"
"Very long. Only a few weeks in reality, but it seems to myself that I have known and—liked you all my life."
"Yet that day when I saw you on the hay-cart is hardly two months old," says Desmond, dreamily.
As a breath of half-forgotten perfume, or a long-lost chord fresh sounded, brings back the memories of a lifetime, so does this chance remark of his now recall to her a scene almost gone out of mind, yet still fraught with recollections terrible to her self-love.
"Two months,—only two?—oh, it must be more," she says, with a pang. Surely time ought to lessen the feeling of shame that overpowers her whenever she thinks of that fatal day.
"So wearisome a time, my own?" asks he, reproachfully.