"Just that, Hermione," he answered, "and—frightfully human!" She was silent. "Do you know what I mean?" he demanded, glancing at her averted face.
"Yes!" she answered, without looking around. So they walked for awhile in silence. Suddenly he seized her hand and drew it through his arm.
"Hermione," he said gently, "I want my wife."
She still kept her head averted, but he could feel how she was trembling.
"And you think—" she began softly.
"That I have been patient long enough. I have waited and hoped because—"
"Because you are so generous, so kind—such a man!" she said softly and with head still averted.
"And yet since I have been well again, you have kept me at arm's length. Dear, you—love me still, don't you?"
"Love you?" she repeated, "love you?" For a moment she turned and looked up at him then drew her arm from his and walked on with head averted once more. So they entered the rose garden and coming to the lily pool leaned there side by side.
"Hermione," said he, staring down into the water, "if you really love me, why do you hate to kiss me? Why do you hardly suffer me to touch you? And you've never even called me by my name, that I remember!"