His pockets were more full than ever of knives and string and buttons. His smile when he was happy lightened his face, changing the lines of it, making it if not handsome pleasant and friendly. He would talk to himself in English, ruffling his hands through his hair: "And then, at three o'clock I must go with Andrey Vassilievitch ..." or "I wonder whether she'll mind if I ask—" He had a large briar pipe at which he puffed furiously, but could not smoke without an endless procession of matches that afterwards littered the floor around him. "The tobacco's damp," he explained to us a hundred times. "It's better damp...."
Then, quite suddenly, the blow fell.
One evening, as they were standing alone together in the yard watching the yellow sky die into dusk, without any preparation, she spoke to him.
"John," she said, "I can't marry you."
He heard her as though she had spoken to another man. It was as though he said: "Ah, that will be bad news for so-and-so."
"I don't understand," he said, and instantly afterwards his heart began to beat like a raging beast and his knees trembled.
"I can't marry you," she told him, "because I don't love you. Ah, I've known it a long time—ever since we left Petrograd. I've often, often wanted to tell you ... I've been afraid."
"You can't marry me?" he repeated, "But you must...." Then hurriedly: "No, I shouldn't say that. You must forgive me ... you have confused me."
"I'm very unhappy ... I've been unhappy a long time. It was a mistake in Petrograd. I don't love you—but it isn't only that.... You wouldn't be happy with me. You think now ... but it's a mistake."
He has told me that as the idea worked through to his brain his only thought was that he must keep her at all costs, under any conditions, keep her.