"Moreover, Anne, I shouldn't think it would be necessary for me to remind you that—" he hesitated, for he suddenly realised that he was about to hurt her, and it was not what he wanted to do—"that there are other and better reasons why—"
He stopped there, and never completed the sentence. She was still looking into his eyes and was still saying to herself: "I love you." It was as if a gentle current of electricity played upon every nerve in his body. He quivered under the touch of something sweet and mysterious. Exaltation was his response to the magnetic wave that carried her unspoken words into his heart. She had not uttered a sound and yet he heard the words. How many times had she cried those delicious words into his ear while he held her close in his arms? How many times had she looked at him like this while actually speaking the words aloud in answer to his appeal?
They were standing but a few feet apart. He could take a step forward and she would be in his arms,—that glorious, adorable, ineffably feminine creation,—in his arms,—in his arms,—
It was she who broke the spell. Her voice sounded far off—and exhausted, as if it came from her lips without breath behind it.
"It will always be just the same, Braden," she said, and he knew that it was an acknowledgment of his unfinished reminder. She was promising him something.
He took a firm grip on himself. "I'm glad that you see things as they are, Anne. Now, I must be off. Thanks just the same for—"
"Oh, don't mention it," she said carelessly. "I'm glad that you see things too as they are, Braden." She held out her hand. There was no restraint in her manner. "I'm sorry, Braden. Things might have been so different. I'm sorry."
"Good God!" he burst out. "If you had only been—" He broke off, resolutely compressing his lips. His jaw was set again in the strong old way that she knew so well.
She nodded her head slowly. "If I had only been some one else instead of myself," she said, "it would not have happened."
He turned toward the door, stopped short and then turned to face her. There was a strange expression in his grey eyes, not unlike diffidence.