She tried to free herself, and he let her go, for he was sobered by the pallor that had replaced the hot flush in her cheeks. "What's the difficulty, Ann—tell me!" he demanded. "It's not going to make any difference, whatever it is—but tell me."
"It's something I can't tell, but it may bring disgrace on me an' that will be disgrace on you—if I let you marry me."
"It's nothing you have done—I know that!" Baird said quickly. "What other people have done doesn't matter to me.... You mean the true inwardness of all that tragedy last spring?... Why, Ann, I've always known that half that story hadn't been told."
"I was the cause of it all.... Any day it may come out who I am and worse things than that for you to bear. That was the reason I made you go away an' wouldn't answer your letters."
"Westmore and Penniman pride—there it is again!" Baird said. "I don't want your secret, dear. I think there's not much you could tell me that I haven't already guessed—in spite of Ben." He circled her with his arms. "Do you think that anything could drive me away from you now—after that kiss of yours?... Tell me again that you love me! Tell me!"
Her answer was a drooping glance and her slow smile, which Baird stole from her lips. "Ann, you're here in my arms and I'm holding you close, but I've a queer feeling that I'm clasping something that may slip away any moment—it makes me want to hold you tighter. It won't be like that by and by—when you're all mine?"
"I don't know," she said slowly. "I'll always be wanting to be loved an' not thinkin' so much about whether I'm lovin' or not.... I know it was like heaven when Edward told me he was my father and how much he loved me. I'd been wanting to be loved like that—all my life—"
Baird pondered her answer for a moment.... She had not pretended; she had told the truth about herself; the woman in her answered to the man in him, but there was, deep in her, a capacity for loving that he had not yet touched. It was guarded by hesitancy, elusiveness, and, not selfishness exactly, nor timidity, but an indefinable inaccessibility that was simply Ann. Judith was more forceful and less complex.... Perhaps if Ann had striven over him as he had striven over her, the thing he wanted to grasp would be his. Edward had come nearer to the indefinable thing than he had.... And yet, it was her inaccessible quality that had drawn him, and that made him hold her the tighter now.
Baird remembered something Ben had written: "... I ain't no wise judge of women, but I've noticed that some of them is just naturally giving-hearted, and some has to grow up to it. The kind that has to grow up to it generally loves most to be loved. They seems to grow up to loving by being loved, that is, if they're loved the right way." Ben had defined Ann very accurately.... But how was he to discover the right way of loving her? Certainly not until he possessed her.
Baird looked down at Ann. "Probably it's your nature not to give much, and I love to struggle for all I get. You're all quivering nerves, a mixture of snow and sunshine, and I've no nerves to speak of—I'm all fight. I think we're suited to each other." He spoke decidedly. "Ann, they're sending me to Europe; I'm going day after to-morrow—will you go with me? Will you marry me to-morrow, and come away from all this?"