"I can understand that."
Cassy gestured. "It is not this empty room, it is the doors that slam. We know we should hasten to love those whom we do love, lest they leave us forever before we have loved them enough. But do we? We think we have time and to spare. I know I thought so. I was careless, forgetful, selfish. That is one of the doors. I can't close it."
"Time will."
"Perhaps. Meanwhile I am told I should change my name. At first, I felt very bitterly toward you for what you did here. It seemed inhuman of you. Since then I have realised that you could not have done otherwise. It saved Mr. Lennox. I would have done that."
"I am sure of it."
"But I won't change my name. I won't put such an affront on the poor dear who thought—yet there! I shall never know what he thought, but who, however wrongly, did it because of me. If only I had not told him! I ought never to have said a word. Never! That door slams the loudest. It wakes me. It is slamming all the time."
"That too shall pass."
Cassy doubted it. The door and the noise of it hurt. Her eyes filled. Yet, too sensitive to weep at anybody, even at an inkbeast, she stood up, went to the window and, while reabsorbing her tears, looked, or affected to look, at a lean stripe of blue sky.
Meditatively Jones considered her. "Fine day for a walk."
It was as though he had offered her a handkerchief. Tearful no longer, but annoyed, she turned and sat down.