"Yes," he said. "It was like your sweetness."
"You can't say," she continued, "that I'm not appreciated in my family."
Through the dark, as her face flashed towards him, he saw the little devil that sat laughing in her eyes.
"You needn't be afraid to talk about it," she said. "And you needn't lie to me. I know it's a tragedy."
He had never lied to her. It was not in him to fashion for her any tender lie.
"It's worse than a tragedy. It's a sin, Jinny. And that's what I would have saved you from. Other people can sin and not suffer. You can't. There's your tragedy."
She raised her head.
"There shall be no more tragedies."
He went on as if he had not heard her. "It wouldn't have mattered if it had been bad all through. But neither you nor I, Jinny, have ever written, probably we never shall write, anything to compare with the beginning of that book. My God! To think that there were only six months—six months—between that beginning and that end."
She smiled, saying to herself, "Only six months. Yes. But what months!"