Because he was afraid that he would get out of hand and take her in his arms,—which would be idiotic, since, of course, she did not care for him that way,—he gripped the steering-wheel. It gave him a curious appearance of making a pathetic appeal to the wind-shield.
“I have been trying to make you say that all evening!” said Sidney. “I love you so much that—K., won't you take me in your arms?”
Take her in his arms! He almost crushed her. He held her to him and muttered incoherencies until she gasped. It was as if he must make up for long arrears of hopelessness. He held her off a bit to look at her, as if to be sure it was she and no changeling, and as if he wanted her eyes to corroborate her lips. There was no lack of confession in her eyes; they showed him a new heaven and a new earth.
“It was you always, K.,” she confessed. “I just didn't realize it. But now, when you look back, don't you see it was?”
He looked back over the months when she had seemed as unattainable as the stars, and he did not see it. He shook his head.
“I never had even a hope.”
“Not when I came to you with everything? I brought you all my troubles, and you always helped.”
Her eyes filled. She bent down and kissed one of his hands. He was so happy that the foolish little caress made his heart hammer in his ears.
“I think, K., that is how one can always tell when it is the right one, and will be the right one forever and ever. It is the person—one goes to in trouble.”
He had no words for that, only little caressing touches of her arm, her hand. Perhaps, without knowing it, he was formulating a sort of prayer that, since there must be troubles, she would always come to him and he would always be able to help her.