I took some time before I answered. "You don't understand how men feel," I said.
She waited for what else I had to say. I lay prone, and gathered together and shaped and reshaped a little heap of pine needles. "You see—— I can't do it. I want you."
She gripped a handful of my hair, and tugged hard between each word. "Haven't you got me?" she asked between her teeth. "What more could you have?"
"I want you openly."
She folded her arms beneath her. "No," she said.
For a little while neither of us spoke.
"It's the trouble of the deceit?" she asked.
"It's—the deceit."
"We can stop all that," she said.