"The world is all outside of this place, Harlan. You know we have always spoken of all other places than this as 'outside.' You have stepped through the great door. Now you see. You can't help seeing. It's all outspread before you. No one can blame you for not looking back here into the shadows. The great light is all ahead. I am—I ought not to speak about myself. I have no right to. But you'll forgive me. I didn't have any one to tell me! I didn't have any mother to advise me. I have played through all the long days, I don't know anything. Other girls—"
"Clare! God save you, little Clare—don't—don't!" he pleaded.
"You have been away only a few days, and yet you have found out the difference. You told me about her. She is beautiful, and she is wise. She has not wasted the long days. She can help you with knowledge. She can—"
He put out his arms and tried to take her, cursing himself for his thoughtless cruelty. Infinite pity and something else—fervent, hungry desire to clasp her overmastered all the prudence of the past. But she eluded him. She sprang away. She retreated to the upper step of the church porch, and he paused, gazing up at her.
"Oh, Blessed Virgin, put your fingers on my lips!" she gasped. "Why did
I say it?"
"Listen to me, Clare," he urged, holding his arms to her. "I know now that I've been waiting for you. I thought it was friendship, but now I—"
She cried out so loudly, so bitterly, that he stopped.
"If you say it—if you say it now, Harlan, it will shame me so that I can never lift my eyes to yours again. I realize what I have said. It is I that have put the thoughts into your mind—almost the words in your mouth. Don't speak to me now. Oh, you can see how little I know—what a fool I am, forward, shameless, ignorant about all that a girl should know! Do not come near me—not now!" He had started to come up the steps—he was crying out to her. "Oh, Harlan, don't you understand? Don't you see that I can't listen to you now? I have driven you to say something to save my pride. I say I have! You are good and honest, and you pity me—and my folly needs your pity. But if you should tell me now that you love me, I'd die of shame—I'd distrust that love! I couldn't help it—and I've brought it all on myself. Oh, my God, why have I grown up a fool—why have I wasted the long days?"
She ran down past him. He did not try to stay her. He understood women not at all. He obeyed her cry to be silent—to keep away from her.
She turned to him when she reached the ground.