Her face was smooth; it smiled under the touch of his mouth and hands. And fear came with her passion. She thought, "Supposing something happens before Friday. If I could only give myself to him now--to-night."
Then, very gently and very tenderly, he released her, as if he knew what she was thinking. He was sorry for her and afraid. Poor Dorothy, who had made such a beastly mess of it, who had come alive so late.
She thought, "But--he wouldn't take me that way. He'd loathe me if he knew."
Yet surely there was the same fear in his eyes as he looked at her?
They were sitting beside each other now, talking quietly. Her face and hands were washed clean; as clean, she said, as they ever would be.
"When I think," he said, "of the years we've wasted. I wonder if there was anything that could have prevented it."
"Only your saying what you've said now. That it didn't matter--that it made no difference to you what I did. But, you see, it made all the difference. And there we were."
"It didn't--really."
She shook her head. "We thought it did."