"Desire, you had to come, tonight."
Some quality in my voice carried to her a message beyond the words. But she did not break into exclamation or question as another woman might. She was mute, as one who stands still to find the path before taking a step.
"You are angry," she said at last. "Something here has gone badly for you; I knew that before I entered this room."
"How can you say that?" I challenged. "If you are like other men and women, how can you know what happens when you are absent? How do you know what passes between the Thing from the Frontier and me?"
"I do not know unless you tell me, Roger. If I feel from afar when you are in sorrow, why, so do many people feel with another in sympathy."
"You feel more than ordinary sympathy can," I retorted.
"Then, perhaps it is not an ordinary sympathy I have for you, Roger."
Her very gentleness struck wrong on my perverted mood. Was she trying to turn me from my purpose with her soft speech? She had never granted me anything so near an admission of love until now.
"It is not an ordinary trial that I have borne for these meagre meetings where I do not see your face or touch your hand," I answered. "But that must end. Put your hand in mine, Desire, and come with me. Let us go out of this room where shadows make our thoughts sickly. You shall stay with my cousin. Or if you choose, we will go straight to New York or Boston. I am asking you to be my wife. Let us have done with phantoms and spectres. I love you."
"No," she whispered. "You do not love me tonight. Tonight you distrust me. Why?"