She nodded again, and still did not meet his eyes. She had not spoken to him since he entered the room.
“There never can be anybody else,” he said. “How could there be?”
And the abrupt laugh that followed the question made her catch her breath. She had, then, the knowledge given to so few, that so far as this one fellow-creature was concerned she was the whole earth—that he was thrusting upon her the greatest responsibility that the soul can carry. For to love is as difficult as it is rare, but to be worthy of love is infinitely harder.
“I knew from the first,” he continued, “that there is no hope. Whichever way we turn there is no hope. I can spare you the task of telling me that.”
She turned her eyes to his at last.
“You knew?” she asked, speaking for the first time.
“I know the history of Poland,” he said, quietly. “The country must have your father—your father needs you. I could not ask you to give up Poland—you know that.”
They stood in silence for a few moments. They had had so little time together that they must needs have learned to understand each other in absence. The friendship that grows in absence and the love that comes to life between two people who are apart, are the love and friendship which raise men to such heights as human nature is permitted to attain.
“If you asked me,” said Wanda, at length, with an illegible smile—“I should do it.”
“And if I asked you I should not love you. If you loved me, you would one day cease to do so; for you would remember what I had asked you. There would be a sort of flaw, and you would discover it—and that would be the end.”