“I don’t know. Shouldn’t we be going?”
“When do I see you again, Gordon? Life is so blank and miserable without you. Does Diana monopolise you so entirely? People wouldn’t understand, would they? I don’t love you and you do not love me. If you thought I loved you, you would never see me again.” She laughed quietly. “It is just your soul and mind”—her voice was very low—“just the clear channel of understanding that makes our minds as one. Love doesn’t bring that, or marriage.”
“It is rather wonderful.” He nodded many times. “Extraordinary—people would never understand.”
She thought they wouldn’t.
“I’m just aching for The Day to come,” she said, staring across the river. “I don’t think it ever will come: not The Day of my dreams.”
Gordon Selsbury had this premonition too; had been waiting all afternoon to translate his doubt into words.
“I’ve been thinking the matter over, Heloise—that trip to Ostend. Of course, it would be lovely seeing one another every day and all day, and living, if not under the same roof, at least in the same environment. The uninterrupted contact of mind—that is beautifully appealing. But do you think it wise? I am speaking, of course, from your point of view. Scandal doesn’t touch a man grossly.”
She turned her glorious eyes to his.
“‘They say: what say they? Let them say,’” she quoted contemptuously.