“I don’t know how, my darling, but I know why.”
“Why, then?”
“Because it had to happen as far as I was concerned. Because it was you, in fact. How could it have been otherwise?”
Her eyes dropped a moment, and then looked full at him again.
“Is it real?” she asked. “And if it hadn’t happened, what would have become of us? Supposing you had not said ‘Helen’?”
“What else could I have said?”
“You might have said nothing.”
“Nothing? You and I here together, and nothing? I had been saying nothing too long,” he cried.
“No, not too long. It has all been perfect. And—and the ‘Sunday Magazine,’ and—and twelve labels, each with their numbers. Oh, I surrender,” she said.
“When you have utterly conquered?”