“But about me?” she demanded.
“That is what we are coming to. I know your worry right now, and of a minute ago. You are so intrinsically honest, so intrinsically true, that the thought of sharing two men is abhorrent to you. I have not misread you. It is a long time since you have permitted me any love-touch.” He shrugged his shoulders “And an equally long time since I offered you a love-touch.”
“Then you have known from the first?” she asked quickly.
He nodded.
“Possibly,” he added, with an air of judicious weighing, “I sensed it coming before even you knew it. But we will not go into that or other things.”
“You have seen...” she attempted to ask, stung almost to shame at thought of her husband having witnessed any caress of hers and Graham’s.
“We will not demean ourselves with details, Paula. Besides, there was and is nothing wrong about any of it. Also, it was not necessary for me to see anything. I have my memories of when I, too, kissed stolen kisses in the pause of the seconds between the frank, outspoken ’Good nights.’ When all the signs of ripeness are visible—the love-shades and love-notes that cannot be hidden, the unconscious caress of the eyes in a fleeting glance, the involuntary softening of voices, the cuckoo-sob in the throat—why, the night-parting kiss does not need to be seen. It has to be. Still further, oh my woman, know that I justify you in everything.”
“It... it was not ever... much,” she faltered.
“I should have been surprised if it had been. It couldn’t have been you. As it is, I have been surprised. After our dozen years it was unexpected—”
“Dick,” she interrupted him, leaning toward him and searching him. She paused to frame her thought, and then went on with directness. “In our dozen years, will you say it has never been any more with you?”