"Because," he said, slowly, "I felt when I was talking to you to-day that you hated everything I said; you wanted to go on believing in all the Shakespeare legends."
"I think I said so. I'm not sure that I meant it. Anyhow, if it rests with me I say give him his research endowment, if he'll take it."
"He'll take it. I'll get a man I know at Balliol to write, offering it. In his beautiful transatlantic simplicity the dear chap will think the college is offering the money. He'll take it like a lamb. But won't you tell me—why was it that you hated me to be interested in this business and you are glad that this Vandervelde should be helped to go on with it?"
"I should like him to be happy," she said, "and there's nothing else in life for him—he has given up everything else for it. I want him, at least, to have the treasure he's paid everything for—the joy of his work. But that sort of joy should be reserved for the people who can have nothing else. But for you—well, somehow, I feel that people who take up a thing like this ought to be prepared to sacrifice everything else in life to it, as he has done. And I could not bear that you should do it. Life has so much besides for you."
"Yes," he said, "life holds very much for me."
"And for me, too," she said, and with that gave him her hand for good night.
He was certain afterward that it had not been his doing, and yet it must have been, for her hand had not moved in his. And yet he had found it laid not against his lips, but against his cheek, and he had held it there in silence for more than a moment before she drew it away and said good night.
At the door she turned and looked back over her shoulder. "Good night," she said again. "Good night, Edward."
And that was the first time she called him by his name.