“Do you want it?”
I broke down then and wept upon his shoulder.
“Don’t cry,” he kept saying, “don’t cry. All you need is sleep. We’ll go up there and get rested. That’s the best news this morning. Why didn’t you tell me right away?”
“I didn’t know whether you’d be interested.”
Jasper laughed, and, through my tears, I laughed, too.
“Don’t get any funny ideas in your head,” he said. “You know very well that—”
It was too hard to say. I spared him.
“What I need is not sleep, Jasper,” I whispered; “it’s just—you.”
He looked at me quickly, with his chin thrown up, and did not smile. Then he gathered me close to him, as if he had not seen me for a long, long time.
“If that is all you want,” he said; “if that is all you want!”