His eyes never wavered from hers, but he lifted the hands he held to his lips and kissed them. "When I saw you again in that theatre in Sevenoaks," he said, "it is perfectly true, one side of me argued with the other. When I came to your rooms and found that other man there, green jealousy just made me blind, and pride—which was distinctly jarred, Joan"—he tried to wake an answering smile in her eyes—"kept me away all this time."
"Then why have you come back?" she repeated.
"Because I love you," he answered. "It is a very hackneyed word, dear, but it means a lot."
"But it doesn't always stay—love," she said. "Supposing if afterwards those thoughts came back to worry you. What would it mean to me if I saw them in your eyes?"
"There isn't any reason why they should. Listen, dear"—he let go her hands and sat up very straight. "Let's go over it carefully and sensibly, and lay this bugbear of pain once and for all. Before you knew me or I knew you, you loved somebody else. Perhaps you only thought you loved him; anyway, I hope so; I am jealous enough of him as it is. Dear, I don't ask you to explain why you gave yourself to this man, whether it was impulse, or ignorance, or curiosity. So many things go to make up our lives; it is only to ourselves that we are really accountable. After to-day we won't dig over the past again. At the time it did not prevent me falling in love with you; for two years I thought about you sometimes, dreamed of you often. I made love to a good many other women in between; don't think that I show up radiantly white in comparison to you; but I loved just you all the time. I saw you in London once, the day after I landed, and I made up my mind then to find out where you lived, and to try and persuade you to marry me."
He waited a minute or two; his eyes had gone out to the garden; he could see the tall daisies of which Joan had carried an armful waving against the dark wall behind them. Then he looked back at her very frankly.
"It is no use trying to pretend," he said, "that I was not shocked when I first saw you dancing. You see, we men have got into a habit of dividing women into two classes, and you had suddenly, so it seemed to me, got into the wrong one. Dear little girl, I don't want to hurt you"—he put his hand on her knee and drew a little closer, so that she could feel him leaning against her. "I am just telling you all the stupid thoughts that were in me, so that you can at last understand that I love you. It only took me half a night to realize the mistake I had made, and then I set about—you may have noticed it—to make you love me. When I came up to London I had made up my mind that you did love me; I was walking as it were on air. It was a very nasty shock that afternoon in your room, Joan; I went away from it feeling as if the end of the world had come."
"Oh, I know, I know," she said quickly. "And I had meant it to hurt you. I wanted to shake you out of what I thought was only a dream. I had not the courage to tell you, and yet, that is not quite true. I was afraid if I told you, and if you saw that I loved you at the same time, you would not let it make any difference. I did not want you to spoil your life, Dick."
"You dear girl!" he answered. "On Monday," he went on slowly, "I got my orders for France. They are what I had been wanting and hoping for ever since the War started, and yet, till they came, funnily enough, I never realized what they meant. It seems strange to talk of death, or even to think of it, when one is young and so horribly full of life as I am—yet somehow this brings it near to me. It is not a question of facing it with the courage of which the papers write such a lot; the truth is, that one looks at it just for a moment, and then ordinary things push it aside. Next to death, Joan, there is only one big thing in the world, and that is Love. I had to see you again before I went; I had to find out if you loved me. I wanted to hold you, so that the feel of you should go with me in my dreams; to kiss you, so that the touch of your lips should stay on mine, even if death did put a cold hand across them. He is not going to"—he laughed suddenly and stood up, drawing her into his arms—"your face shall go before me, dear, and in the end I shall come home to you."
"What can I say?" Joan whispered, "You know I love you. Take me then, Dick, and do as you wish with me."