He came close to her side, took her hand reverently as though its preciousness made him fear the harm his heavy grip might do. And there, under the network of apple branches interwoven with the patches of a deep, blue sky, with now and then the sound of an apple tumbling heavily to the ground, or a flight of starlings whirring overhead, and in the distance the hollow monotonous beating on the tin drums of the boy who scared the birds, he told her roughly, unevenly, in words cut out of the solid vein of his emotion, what kind of a woman he thought she was.
"No," she kept on whispering; "no, no."
But he paid no attention. He scarcely heard the word in the gentleness of her voice. When he had finished, she took away her hand.
"That means nothing to you, then?" he said bitterly.
She gazed away through the lines of apple trees that hid the greater distance from view.
"It means more than you think," she replied. "But I can't let you say it—I can't let you continue to think it, until—until"—she took a deep breath—"until I tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"I'll write to you."
"But you can tell me. Why can't you tell me?" His lips were white. The little switch snapped in his fingers. Neither of them noticed it. Neither heard the sound. "Why can't you tell me?" he repeated.
"I can't, that is all. After what you've said—after what you've been so generous to tell me that you thought of me, I—couldn't. I'll write it."