“We must get married at once?” she repeated, with a doubting interrogation.
“Yes, as soon as ever we can, darling.”
“But Duco, dearest Duco, it’s less possible now than ever. Don’t you see that it can’t be done? It’s impossible, impossible. It might have been possible before, some months ago, a year ago ... perhaps, perhaps not even then. Perhaps it was never possible. It is so difficult to say. But now it can’t be done, really not....”
“Don’t you love me well enough?”
“How can you ask me such a question? How can you ask me, darling? But it’s not that. It is ... it is ... it can’t be, because I am not free.”
“Not free?”
“I am not free. I may feel free later ... or perhaps not, perhaps never.... My dearest Duco, it is impossible. I wrote to you, you know: that first meeting at the ball; it was so strange; I felt that ...”
“That what?”
She took his hand and stroked it; her eyes were vague, her words were vague:
“You see ... he has been my husband.”