"You don't know," he said, "what a help you've been to me already—You showed me the very first time that we met that you did sympathize...."
His voice was tender, partly because her presence moved him so deeply and partly because the sympathy of anyone about his own affairs made him instantly full of sorrow for himself—When anyone said that they thought that he had been badly treated he always felt with an air of surprised discovery: "By Jove, I have been having a bad time!"
"Yes—Wasn't it strange, that first meeting in Miss Rand's room? We seem to have known one another all our lives."
She looked at him. "That you should hate grandmamma so," she said, "was a great thing to me. I'd been all alone—fighting her—for so long."
Rachel felt, in the glow of the occasion, that, all her days, there had been active constant war-to-the-knife in the Portland Place house.
"She's been the curse of my life," he said bitterly. "Always keeping me down, making me unable to do myself justice. Why should she hate me so?"
"She hates us," cried Rachel, "because we're both determined to be free. We wouldn't have our lives ruled for us. She wants everyone to be under her in everything."
They glowed together, very close to one another now, in a glorious assertion of rebellious independence. He put his hand upon the back of her chair—
"Now," he said, his voice trembling, "now that we've got to know one another, you won't go back on it, will you? If I couldn't feel that you were behind me, after being so encouraged, it would be terrible for me—worse than anything's ever been for me."
"You needn't be afraid," she said, not looking at him, but tremendously conscious of his hand that now touched her dress. Then there was a long and very difficult silence during which events seemed to move with terrific impetus.