“You said last evening I had some of a very common quality.”
“Now you mustn't take that serious,” he protested; “it was just in a way of speech. I told you I couldn't rightly explain myself.”
“Anyhow,” she asserted bluntly, “I am lonely. What will you do about it?”
His amazement turned into a consternation which even now she found almost laughable. “Me?” he stammered. “There's no way I can help you. You are having a joke.”
She realized, with a feeling that her knowledge came too late, that she was entirely serious. Jason Burrage was the only being alive who could give her any assistance, yes, save her from the future. Her hands were cold, she felt absolutely still, as if she had suddenly turned into marble, a statue with a heart slightly fluttering.
“You could be here a lot,” she told him, and then paused, glancing at him swiftly with hard, bright eyes. He had removed his feet from the stove, and sat with his cheroot in a poised, awkward hand. She was certain that he would never speak.
“We might get married.”
Honora was startled at the ease with which the words were pronounced, and conscious of an absurdly trivial curiosity—she wondered just how much he had been shocked by her proposal? She saw that he was stupefied. Then:
“So we might,” he pronounced idiotically. “There isn't any real reason why we shouldn't. That is——.” He stopped. “Where does the laugh start?” he demanded.
Suddenly Honora was overwhelmed, not by what she had said, but by the whole difficulty and inner confusion of her existence. She turned away her head with an unintelligible period. A silence followed, intensified by the rain flinging against the glass.