He stopped walking, and put out his torch. "Don't be sorry," he said, in a low, constrained voice. "It's far better that I should know exactly how you feel. Of course I was surprised, for I'd always had a notion that women regarded love from a more ideal standpoint than men seem able to do. But I see now that I was mistaken." Some of the bitterness with which his heart was still full and overflowing crept into his measured voice. "I think you will believe me when I say that I did not mean to insult you——"
He was going on, but she interrupted him.
"—I'm sorry—sorry and ashamed too, Oliver, of what I said. Please—please forget what happened——"
He turned on her amid the dark shadows.
"If I forget, will you?" he asked sombrely.
And she answered, "Yes, yes—indeed I will! But before we put what happened yesterday behind us forever, do let me tell you, Oliver, that I am grateful, deeply grateful, for your——" she hesitated painfully, and then murmured "your affection."
But Oliver Tropenell did not meet her half-way, as she had perhaps thought he would. He was torn by conflicting feelings, cursing himself for having lost his self-control the day before, and yet, even so, deep in his subtle, storm-tossed mind, not altogether sorry for what had happened.
And so it was she who went on, speaking slowly and with difficulty: "I know that I have been to blame! I know that I ought never to have spoken of Godfrey as I have sometimes allowed myself to do to you. According to his lights, he is a good husband, and I know that I have been—that I am—a bitter disappointment to him."
He muttered something—she did not hear what it was, and she hurried on: "What I have wanted—and oh, Oliver, I have wanted it so much—is a friend," almost he heard the unspoken words, "not a lover."
She put out her hand in the darkness and laid it, for a moment, on his arm. And then, suddenly, in that moment of, to him, exquisite, unhoped-for contact, Oliver Tropenell swore to himself most solemnly that he would rest satisfied with what she would, and could, grant him. And so—