“I understand your words, dear, but not your heart. I thank you——”
“No. Do not thank me. Come, let us walk on, slowly. Do you know that it has been the same with you, though you will not admit it? You did not love me a year ago, as you do now, did you?”
“No. That was impossible. I love you more and more every day, every week, every month.”
“A year ago it would have been quite possible for you to have forgotten me and loved some other woman. You did not look at me as you do now. Your voice had not the same ring in it.”
“I daresay not—I have changed. I can feel it.”
“Yes, and it is because I have watched you changing in one way, that I am afraid I may change in the other.”
George was very much surprised and at the same time was made very happy by what she had told him. He had indeed suspected the truth, and it was not enough to have heard her say the words “I love you” in the calm and reasoning tone she had used. But on the other hand, there was something brilliantly honest about her confession, that filled him with hope and delight. If a woman so true once loved with all her heart, she would love longer and better and more truly than other women can. So at least thought George Wood, as he walked by her side beneath the trees in Washington Square, and glanced from time to time at her lovely blushing face.
“I thank you, dear, with all my heart,” he said after a long pause.
“There is little enough to thank me for. It seems to me that I could not have done less. Would it have been honest and right to let things go on as they were going without an explanation?”
“Perhaps not. But most women would have done nothing. I understand you better now, I think—if a man can ever understand a woman at all.”