"May I come in?"
It was her brother at Moya's door, and he began to believe she must be asleep after all. Theodore felt aggrieved; he wanted speech with Moya before he went to bed. He was about to knock again when the door was opened without a word. There was no light in the room. Yet the girl stood fully dressed in the last level rays of the moon. And she had been crying.
"Moya!"
"What do you want?"
"Only to speak to you."
"What about?"
"Yourself, to begin with. What's the trouble, my dear girl?"
He had entered in spite of her, and yet she was not really sorry that he had come. She had suffered so much in silence that it would be relief to speak about anything to anybody. Theodore was the last person in whom she could or would confide. But there was something comfortable in his presence just there and then. She could tell him a little, if she could not tell him all; and he could tell her something in return.
She heard him at his match-box, and shut the door herself as he lit the candles.
"Don't speak loud, then," said Moya. "I—I'd rather they didn't hear us—putting our heads together."