“Has given.”
A silence fell between them. Then he turned to her, and it seemed as if the cloud had lifted from him. He held out his hands and smiled at her.
“I understand. You and she are right. A starved love could not live for ever; it must die. Better it should be strangled almost at birth, Joan. So—so this is good-bye?”
She shook her head. “Friends, always, Johnny,” she said.
“Friends always, then.”
She came close to him. She lifted her hand suddenly, and thrust back the hair from his forehead, she looked him in the eyes and, smiling, kissed him on the brow.
“Go and find your happiness—a far, far better than I could ever offer you.”
“And you?”
She shook her head, and her eyes, looking beyond him into the garden, were dreamy and strangely soft.
“Tell me about that man, Johnny,” she said. “Will you take me back to Little Langbourne with you?”