"Not won't," she said, gently.
"Can't? Something that's happened and you can't tell me?"
He remembered how on the last night at Warwick he had held that hand of hers against his face. They had seemed so very near then. And now there was a gulf suddenly opened between them—the impassable gulf of a secret—a secret that was hers and not his.
"Yes, something did happen and I have promised not to tell you. If ever I can, I will."
"Something has come between us and you have promised not to tell me what it is?"
"Oh no—no!" she said, very earnestly, and her dear eyes looked full in his. "Nothing has come between us—nothing could—"
He realized, with some impatience, that Charles, at least, was between them. But for Charles he could, quite naturally and ayant l'air de rien have leaned a little toward her as he spoke—so that his shoulder might, perhaps, if she had leaned also, have just touched hers. But across Charles this could not be. And to lean, after the removal of Charles, would bear an air of premeditation not to be contemplated for an instant.
"If it's nothing that comes between us—" he said. "But even then, it's something that's made you sad, made you different. I suppose, though, it's unreasonable to expect that there shall be no secrets between any two human beings, no matter how—how friendly they are," he ended, with conscious lameness.
"Of course it's unreasonable," she said; "it would mean, wouldn't it, that neither of us could ever be trusted by any one else? Whereas now people can tell you things they wouldn't want to tell me, and tell me things they wouldn't care about telling you."