She replied: 'You were not definite in your directions about the minutes.'
'I feared to name midnight.'
'Why?'
'Lest the appointment of midnight—I lose my knowledge of you!—should make you reflect, frighten you. You see, I am inventing a reason; I really cannot tell why, if it was not that I hoped to have just those few minutes more of you. And now they're gone. I would not have asked you but that I thought you free to act.'
'I am.'
'And you come freely?'
'A "therefore" belongs to every grant of freedom.'
'I understand: your judgement was against it.'
'Be comforted,' she said; 'it is your right to bid me come, if you think fit.'
One of the sofa-volumes fell. She caught her breath; and smiled at her foolish alarm.