Agatha winced at this. It was, no doubt, true, but it seemed horribly petty and commonplace. His comprehension stopped at such details as these, and he had given her no credit for the courage which would have made light of bodily discomfort.
“Do you think that would have mattered? We were both very young then, and we could have faced our troubles and grown up together. Now we’re not the same. You let me grow up alone.”
Hawtrey shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t changed,” he told her as she looked at him with deep-seeing eyes.
He contented himself with that, and Agatha grew more resolute. There was not a spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the surface. There was no depth in him.
“Aggy,” he added humbly, when he should have been dominant and forceful, “it is only a question of a little time. You will get used to me.”
“Then,” pleaded the girl, who clutched at the chance of respite, “give me six months from to-day. It isn’t very much to ask, Gregory.”
Gregory wrinkled his brows. “It’s a great deal,” he answered slowly. “I feel that we shall drift further and further apart if once I let you go.”
“Then you feel that we have drifted a little already?”
“I don’t know what has come over you, Aggy, but there has been a change. I’m what I was, and I want to keep you.”
Agatha rose and turned towards him a white face. “If you are wise you will not urge me now,” she said.