"It has nothing to do with love. Mind, I don't despise it. How could I? But"—she threw out her hands—"I will not have myself hemmed in by it. I want wide spaces."
"You'll get them when you get love," he said. "You see—I know."
She looked up with a different animation. "Oh, Jack, why haven't you married her?"
"She's dead," he said.
She gave a little strangled sob, and stared at him as though she saw something wonderful, and when she spoke, it was to say a strange thing.
"Then you have her quite, quite safe." She seemed to look on him as on one who has reached the desired harbourage.
Her own uncertain voyaging seemed the lonelier, the more endless. She could not steer a course, she needed piloting. She confessed the need, and then, lifting her head, her pride strove with such pitiful dependence. She remembered that long-past morning by the docks, when she had suffered to see the stately sailing-ship obediently following the little tug: she remembered how the lofty masts had bowed themselves in submission, with what a sad humility the ship had been drawn through the water. She felt the old pain, yet here she was crying out for a leading hand.
"No, no!" she said, and looked across at Neville. "I'm sufficient for myself," she told him; but in her face he saw the danger of her hungry moment.
"That's right," he said; "don't borrow a particle of anyone unless you're forced to it."
"I shan't be forced to it," she answered.