"Nobody else has me—at all," she answered. "No one wants me."
The colour ran up under his fine skin.
"What I mean is a little different. Perhaps you mayn't understand it. I want this—our being together in this way—our understanding and talking—to be something that belongs to us and to no one else. It's too sudden and wonderful for any one but ourselves to understand. Nobody else could understand it. Perhaps we don't ourselves—quite! But I know what it does to me. I can't bear the thought of other people spoiling the beauty of it by talking it over and looking on." He actually got up and began to walk about. "Oh, I ought to have something of my own—before it's all over—I ought! I want this miracle of a thing—for my own."
He stopped and stood before her.
"My mother is the most beloved creature in the world. I have always told her everything. She has always cared. I don't know why I have not told her about—this—but I haven't and I don't want to—now. That is part of the strange thing. I do not want to tell her—even the belovedest woman that ever lived. I want it for myself. Will you let me have it—will you help me to keep it?"
"Like a secret?" said Robin in her soft note.
"No, not a secret. A sort of sacred, heavenly unbelievable thing we own together."
"I understand," was Robin's answer. "It does not seem strange to me. I have thought something like that too—almost exactly like."
It did not once occur to them to express, even to themselves, in any common mental form the fact that they were "in love" with each other. The tide which swept them with it had risen ages before and bore them on its swelling waves as though they were leaves.