“And there’s so much to show you! Oh! it’s so wonderful to have all the old places that I’ve loved so long, to have them all to show you—to share them all with you.... Oh, wonderful, wonderful!”
“Yes, I’ll share them all with you. But—but ... Katherine, darling. No, turn round—come closer. There, like that: I don’t want to share you with them. I don’t want to share you with anyone or anything.”
“You don’t—you can’t. Of course you can’t. I’m all yours—but then this is part of me, so it’s all yours too.”
“And you couldn’t live away from it? You couldn’t imagine having to be right away from it—if I had to live somewhere else?”
“But why should you? You won’t have to live somewhere else. And let’s not imagine anything. Things are so lovely, so perfect, as they are. I don’t like imagining things. I can’t when this is all so real.”
“Katie ... Katie ... No, come closer. Much closer. I don’t care if I do hurt you. I want to. I want you, you, you. It’s what I said last night. Let’s marry soon—not this awful year. I feel—I don’t know—I imagine too much. I suppose—Rut I feel as though you’d escape me, as though they’d all come between and take you away. If once you were mine I’d never care again. We’d stay anywhere, do anything you like. But this is so hard—to wait like this. To see you caring so much for other people, who don’t, perhaps, care for me. I want you. I want you—all of you. And I’ve only got half.”
“Half!” She laughed triumphantly. “You have all of me—all of me—for ever! Philip, how funny you are! Why, you don’t trust me! I’d wait for ever if necessary, and never doubt for an instant that anything could come between. I trust you as I trust this place.”
A voice broke in upon them. Someone called.
“Katherine! Katherine!”
Slowly she drew away from him. “That’s mother. I must go.”