She spoke curtly, and he made no rejoinder, uncertain of her meaning.
“What was the other argument that might count in my favour, Lucilla? One was my need of you. I think I’ve shown you that. But you said ‘two things, to be accurate.’ Tell me what the other was.”
“Is,” she corrected, with a sound that was very nearly a laugh, and that caused him to look at her.
She faced his gaze with all her own steadiness, but for the first time he saw Lucilla’s mild imperviousness, her implacable matter-of-factness, as a shield for something infinitely fragile and sensitive.
Her voice, always quiet, was quieter than ever when she spoke.
“It’s fair to tell you, I think. I’ve loved you for a long time now. So you see my risks would be greater than yours, Owen. That’s why I was afraid of impulse. But you see I’ve told you this—which was rather difficult to say—because it seems to me that our one chance lies in absolute honesty. We’ve faced the fact together that you’re—just lonely, and that’s why you want me—but—we’ve got to face the other fact too—both of us—I mean that, for me—you do stand for romance, Owen.”
Her voice had not altered, but the effort with which she had spoken had brought tears, that Owen had never seen there before, to Lucilla’s eyes.
Nevertheless she smiled at him valiantly.
For the first time, perhaps, since his childhood, Quentillian found himself unable to analyse his feelings or to translate them into tersely sententious periods.
In the long silence that fell between them, there began a process by which he slowly reversed certain judgments, and eliminated certain axioms, which hitherto had stood to him for wisdom.