"I'm glad I've seen you," she said at last.
He ignored the valediction of her tone.
"And when am I to see you again?" he said.
This time she did not answer, and he had a profound sense of the pause.
He asked himself now, as they stood (he being aware that they were standing) on the brink of the deep, how far she had ever really accepted his preposterous pretext? Up till now she had appeared to be taking him and his pretext simply, as they came. Her silence, her pause had had no expectation in it. It evidently had not occurred to her that the deep could open up. That was how she had struck him, more and more, as never looking forward, to him or to anything, as being almost afraid to look forward. She regarded life with a profound distrust, as a thing that might turn upon her at any time and hurt her.
He rose and she followed him, holding the lamp to light the stairway. He turned.
"Well," he said, "have you seen enough of me?"
They were outside the threshold now, and she stood there, one arm holding her lamp, the other stretched across the doorway, as if she would keep him from ever entering again.
"Or," said he, "may I come again? Soon?"
"Do," she said, "and bring Nina with you."