“We’ve managed to express a lot without words,” he said.
“Yes,” she said... “feelings. We’ve expressed ourselves somehow mutely. We get near to one another mentally. When I can’t see you any more I shall still have that sense of nearness. You’ll be there—somewhere.”
The arm with which he supported her held her more closely. He looked down at the shadowy outline of her face in the darkness where it rested against his shoulder, and his lips tightened suddenly. Why, in the name of all that was absurd, were they parting like this? ... parting without a sufficient reason,—for a scruple. The impulse to plead with her once more, to urge her more insistently than he had yet done, moved him strongly. He bent his face to hers quickly; but the words he would have uttered died on his lips, as the soft, low-pitched voice that he loved fell again on the silence, with a new note of tenderness in its tone.
“I think it is because of the trust you inspire that I love you so well.”
When we perceive, or imagine we perceive, certain qualities in another, it is possible to inspire those qualities which we admire. As he listened to her, Dare was silent; the impulse to plead with her faded. To deliberately shake her faith in him was a thing he could not do. There must be no painful memories of those last hours together.
“There is no accounting for love,—love like ours,” he said after a brief pause. “It’s not a thing of reasons,—it’s instinctive,—a common bond of sympathy, of mental understanding, uniting us as no law could unite us. If we never meet again you will still belong to me, as I belong to you. No lesser love could ever come into my life,—it wouldn’t satisfy me. I’ve given you everything. You fill all the crevices of my heart and brain. You’ve succeeded in crowding out the rest. When we have gone our separate ways, following out our different lives, as we shall be doing shortly, it will be some consolation to reflect that we hold one another constantly in our thoughts. You’ll write to me,—you can’t refuse me this time. I shall write,—often, whenever the impulse moves me. I am not going to lose touch with you again. If life gets too difficult for you, you will let me know. I’m always behind you, remember. I’m there when you want me. The time may come, Pamela.”
“Yes,” she said. “But you mustn’t encourage me to become too dependent on you. I’m not going to be afraid of difficulties, dear. Life is difficult. It has been difficult for me for some while past. You know... You knew that time you stayed with Connie. I think it was at that time when things were so hard I first learnt how much I cared,—how much you were to me I leaned on your strength then without realising it; and when you left I missed you so. It hurt—like hunger.”
“It’s like that with me always,” he said.
“It is easier to bear now,” she added, “since we’ve talked it over together. It is keeping it all pent up that frets one so. It is wrong,—don’t you think?—to be afraid of loving,—to attempt to suppress it as though it were something shameful. There is nothing shameful in love when one loves straight. I’m proud of loving you,—proud to know your love is mine. It’s an immense help to me, that knowledge. The world wouldn’t see it as we see it. I know. That’s where the need for secrecy comes in. But secrecy is just a little—dishonouring, don’t you think?”
He smiled faintly.