Sim had seated himself awkwardly on a chair, his hat on his knee. "Have a good time down in the medder?" he asked presently. "He told me you was fishing."
"Oh, yes, and we caught some whoppers too. They'll be good to eat, I'm sure."
"Yes, I expect you'll like them." He seemed for some reason less than ordinarily loquacious, and suddenly she felt it.
"Tell me," said she, turning squarely towards him with a summoning of her own courage. "Why are you away all the time? It's been more than a week, and I've hardly seen you. You're away all the time. Am I doing wrong in any way?"
"Why, no."
"I don't mean to cry—it's just because I'm not used to things yet. It's hard to be blind. But—I meant all I said—then. Don't you believe me?"
"I know you did," said he, simply. But still the awkward silence, and still her attempt to set things more at ease.
"Why don't you come over here close to me?" said she, with an attempt dutiful at least. "How can I tell anything about you? You've never even touched me yet, nor I you. You've never even—I've never had any real notion of how you look, what you are like. I never saw your picture. It was an awful thing of me to do."
"Are you sorry?"
"But any woman wants to see her husband, to know what he is, what he looks like. I can't tell you how I wonder. And I don't seem to know—and can't learn. Tell me about yourself, won't you? What sort of looking man are you? What are you like?"