"Oh, I know there was Solomon," she faltered, holding on to the seat, "saying things, too, and they meant something else, but—but isn't this different? Different because—well, I suppose through my not being the Church? I'm very sorry," she added apologetically, "that I'm not the Church—because then I suppose nothing would really matter?"
"You mean you don't want me to call you lover?"
"Well, I am married," she said, in the voice of one who apologised for drawing his attention to it. "There is no getting away from that."
"But we have got away from it," said Ingram, sitting down beside her and loosening the hand nearest him from its tight hold on the seat and kissing it, while she watched him in an uneasiness and dismay that now were extreme. "That's exactly what we have done. Oh," he went on, kissing her hand with what seemed to her a quite extraordinary emotion, "you brave, beautiful little thing, you must know—you can't not know—how completely and gloriously you have burned your ships!"
"Ships?" she echoed.
She stared at him a moment, then added with a catch in her breath:
"Which—ships?"
"Ingeborg, Ingeborg, my fastness, my safety, my darling, my reality, my courage—" said Ingram, kissing her hand between each word.
"Yes," she said, brushing that aside, "but which ships?"
"My strength, my helper, friend, sister, lover, unmerited mate—"