“It’s not as if this were a light thing between us. I want you to know me as I am. If I thought that at that moment ... when you were on your way here, almost——”
He dropped her hand and stood up. “Yes, yes—I understand.”
“But do you?” Her look followed him. “I’m not a goose of a girl. I know ... of course I know...but there are things a woman feels ... when what she knows doesn’t make any difference. It’s not that I want you to explain—I mean about that particular evening. It’s only that I want you to have the whole of my feeling. I didn’t know what it was till I saw you again. I never dreamed I should say such things to you!”
“I never dreamed I should be here to hear you say them!” He turned back and lifting a floating end of her scarf put his lips to it. “But now that you have, I know—I know,” he smiled down at her.
“You know?”
“That this is no light thing between us. Now you may ask me anything you please! That was all I wanted to ask you.”
For a long moment they looked at each other without speaking. She saw the dancing spirit in his eyes turn grave and darken to a passionate sternness. He stooped and kissed her, and she sat as if folded in wings.
XII
It was in the natural order of things that, on the way back to the house, their talk should have turned to the future.