“Because,” Julie replied bravely, “it’s the saddest thing in all the world that you shouldn’t know what I do. I’m convinced you can’t know... You’d act differently if you knew.”
“You are a little mystifying,” he said, and looked at her uncertainly. “It sounds rather like a grammatical conundrum to which the key may be found in the tense. I’m not good at riddles. If you want me to understand, you’ll have to take the plunge, and not stand shivering on the brink.”
So Julie took the plunge, but took it after a feminine method, going in by degrees with the instinctive aversion for putting her head under water.
“I’m speaking of someone,” she said, “I’ve grown to know and to love... I think she also loves me.”
“That wouldn’t be very difficult,” he interposed.
“Because,” Julie went on, as though there had been no interruption, “she talks to me sometimes of intimate things.”
He stared at her.
“You are not going to repeat her confidence to me, surely?”
“Why, no,” she answered. “But—I’m trying to explain.”
“You’re doing it very badly,” he said; and it occurred to Julie that he was anxious to prevent her explaining more fully. But because this thing mattered to her, mattered tremendously, she persevered.