And then she asks an imprudent question:—"And what did he say then?" she says in a troubled, unhappy voice.
"D'you really want to know what he said?"
She creeps a little nearer to him, she even takes his hand. "Yes, Gerald.
Tell me."
"He said that if you wouldn't consent to do some such thing, why then I should be doing wrong to stay in Europe. He said—I little knew how true it was—that soon you would learn that I loved you, and that then—that then the situation would become intolerable."
"Intolerable?" she repeats in a low, strained tone. "Oh no, not intolerable, Gerald! Surely you don't feel that?"
And this time it is Gerald who winces, who draws back; but suddenly his heart fills up, brims over with a great, an unselfish tenderness—for Nancy, gazing up at him, looks disappointed as a child, not a woman, looks, when disappointed of a caress; and so he puts his arms round her and kisses her very gently, very softly, in what he tells himself is a kind, brotherly fashion. "You know I'll do just whatever you wish," he murmurs.
And contentedly she nestles against him. "Oh, Gerald," she whispers back, "how good you are to me! Can't we always be reasonable—like this?"
And he smiles, a little wryly. "Why, yes," he says, "of course we can! And now, Nancy, it's surely breakfast time. Let's go back to the house."
And Nancy, perhaps a little surprised, a little taken aback at his sudden, cheerful acceptance of her point of view, follows him through the dark passage cut in the yew hedge. She supposes—perhaps she even hopes—that before they emerge into the sun light he will turn and again kiss her in the reasonable, tender way he did just now.
But Gerald does not even turn round and grasp her two hands as he did before. He leaves her to grope her way behind him as best she can, and as they walk across the lawn he talks to her in a more cheerful, indifferent way than he has ever done before. Once they come close up to the house, however, he falls into a deep silence.