Her voice betrayed her confused emotions. Her sense of right was as nothing against the belief that he loved her and that she loved him. A masterful tide had caught them up and borne them far, leaving them islanded on territory remote and touched with a mystical light that souls had never known before.
She was now fully persuaded that henceforth her life was to be bound up with his; that until death took one or the other they would never face separation. Space and distance were as nothing; if he went to far and waste places there would be still the strong spiritual tie which it pleased her to think was the real bond between them—something which, in her absolute surrender, she felt to be above all laws of men and of kinship with heavenly things. It struck her as odd that she was able so thoroughly to analyze her sensations, seeking and finding explanation and justification cleansed of all passion.
“I know I have no right to your love; none whatever,” he said steadily. “There are people who would call me a scoundrel for saying what I have just said to you. But every man in my plight feels that his case is different. I’ve thought of all this in the plainest terms, not sparing myself.”
“It would be like you to do that,” she replied.
Now that she had taken him for her lover she saw him as a paragon of generosity and nobility. He would not spare himself; she was anxious to apply balm to his conscience, to make him understand that her happiness was so complete that nothing else mattered.
“Just so you love me!” she said gently. “Nothing could be so dear as just knowing that you care. Oh, do I mean so much to you?”
“Everything,” he exclaimed and lifted her hand and kissed it.
“That’s the way it has to be—everything or nothing. I never loved any one before.”
“I’m so glad! I was afraid to ask you that. I had even thought there might be some one else—some younger man——”
“Stop! We’re not going to talk of ages,” she laughed, with a quick gesture laying her hand for a moment against his lips. “It must be understood right now that you’re not a day over twenty-five.”