"Distraction—refuge; just what I used to be."
"As if any one ever could be what you used to be!"
He held her closer.
"You're saying what I used to be, as if—"
She struggled to get out of his arms, but he kept her prisoner.
"Hush! Listen. It's only this, dear: In sharing my life you have come a little—a little under the shadow. No, you aren't what you used to be—a gay little cousin that one could laugh with, and, as I thought, leave behind. You are something so much nearer that you are a dearer self. You give hope a new gladness"—she looked up with happy eyes—"you give fear fresh poignancy."
"No—no," she said lightly, concerned only to lift him out of his grave mood. "No, Ethan, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have not found it dull or gloomifying to be with you. You invent sad things to say, but we've had a heavenly time—till just lately."
"Yes, we found happiness if ever two people did!" But he looked at her with so strange a passion of questioning that she kissed his eyelids down.