And here indeed she confounded him. "To me—I hope," she declared.
He pushed his chair back with an inarticulate murmur. "To you—?"
"To us," she corrected.
"Good Lord!" he said. If there had been the least hint of hallucination in her transparent gaze—but no: it was as clear, as shallow, as easily fathomable as when he had first suffered the sharp surprise of striking bottom in it.
It occurred to him that perhaps she was trying to be funny: he knew that there is nothing more cryptic than the humor of the unhumorous.
"Is it a joke?" he faltered.
"Oh, I hope not. I want it so much to be a reality—"
He paused to smile at the limitations of a world in which jokes were not realities, and continued gently: "But since it is one already—"
"To us, I mean: to you and me. I want—" her voice wavered, and her eyes with it. "I have always wanted so dreadfully...it has been such a disappointment...not to..."
"I see," said Lethbury slowly.