She caught a moth that was fluttering round the lamp, and carried it to the window. When, a moment later, he turned and gave her another unhappy look, she felt a kind of pity for him, forced as he was, by his nature, to work himself into unhappiness over such a trivial matter.
"Don't let us say unkind things to each other," she said slowly. "I'm sorry. If I had known it would worry you so much, I shouldn't have said a word about it. That would have been easy."
He felt her touch on his arm. As it grew warm and close, he, too, was filled with the wish to be at one with her again—to be lulled into security. He pressed her hand.
"Forgive me! To-day I've been bothered—pestered with black thoughts. Or else I shouldn't go on like this."
Now she was silent; both stared out into the night. And then a strange thing happened. He began to speak again, and words rose to his lips, of which, a moment before, he had had no idea, but which he now knew for absolute truth. He said: "I don't want to excuse myself; I'm jealous, I admit it. And yet there IS an excuse for me, Louise. For saying such things to you, I mean. To-night I—Have you ever thought, dear, what a difference it would make to us, if you had ... I mean if I knew ... that you had never cared for anyone ... if you had never belonged to anyone but me? That's what I wish now more than anything else in the world. If I could just say to myself: no one but me has ever held her in his arms; and no one ever will. Do you think then, darling, I could speak as I have to-night?"
A moment back, he had had no thought of such a thing; now, here it was, expressed, over his lips—another of those strange, inlying truths, which were existent in him, and only waited for a certain moment to come to light. Strangest of all, perhaps, was the manner in which it impressed itself on him. In it seemed to be summed up his trouble of the afternoon, his suspense and irritation of the later hours. It was as if he had suddenly found a formula for them, and, as he stated it, he was dumbfounded by its far-reaching significance.
A church-clock pealed a single stroke.
"Oh, yes, perhaps," said Louise, in a low voice. She could not rouse herself to a very keen interest in his feelings.
"No, not perhaps. Yes—a thousand times yes! Everything would be changed by it. Then I couldn't torment you. And our love would have a certainty such as it can now never have."
"But you knew, Maurice! I told you—everything! You said it didn't matter."