“It was impossible to come then. I had to go back to my post.”
“And impossible to write and tell me so?”
“Your letter was a long time coming. I had waited a week—ten days. I had some excuse for thinking, when it came, that you were in no great hurry for an answer.”
“You thought that—really—after reading it?”
“I thought it.”
Her heart leaped up to her throat. “Then why are you here today?”
He turned on her with a quick look of wonder. “God knows—if you can ask me that!”
“You see I was right to say I didn’t understand.”
He stood up abruptly and stood facing her, blocking the view over the river and the checkered slopes. “Perhaps I might say so too.”
“No, no: we must neither of us have any reason for saying it again.” She looked at him gravely. “Surely you and I needn’t arrange the lights before we show ourselves to each other. I want you to see me just as I am, with all my irrational doubts and scruples; the old ones and the new ones too.”