"How can I do otherwise?" Her face was turned from him and her low voice was muffled by her hair. But for the first time she had cast away her guard of light indifference. "Friendship is impossible for me. I thought you would see—and go away. Nothing that you can do would be any real help. I have tried before to free myself. But I could not. Nor, in the little flights of freedom which I had, did I find anything that I wanted. I am as well here as anywhere. Unless—"
She was silent, looking into the fire.
"Unless I were really free," she added softly.
He could not see her face. But she looked very young sitting there with her unbound hair and hands clasped childishly about her knees.
"You have wondered about me—in a psychological way—ever since you came." She went on, her voice taking on a harsher note. "You have been trying to 'place' me. Well, since you are curious I will tell you what I am. When I was younger and we lived in towns I used to wander off by myself down the main streets to gaze in the windows. I never went into any of the stores. The things I wanted were inside and for sale—but I could not buy them. I was just a window-gazer. That's what I am still. Life is for sale somewhere. But I cannot buy it."
The throb of her voice was like the beating of caged wings through the quiet room.
"But—" began Spence, and then he paused. It wasn't at all easy to know what to say. "You are mistaken," he went on finally. "Life isn't for sale anywhere. Life is inside, not outside. And no one ever really wants the things they see in other people's windows."
"I do," said Desire coldly.
She was certainty very young! Spence felt suddenly indulgent.
"What, then—for instance?" he asked.