He broke off mute, like most of his countrymen, in face of an emotion. Putting his hands in his pockets, he strolled round the little room, idly taking up bits of carved wood and stone, tools and drawings, and laying them down again. Melicent neither moved nor spoke. She stood silent beside the oaken angel.
"It's wonderful," he suddenly began again—"don't you think it's wonderful, how sometimes one's identity seems to come up against someone else's, and a response sounds, as if we were two Marconi instruments, and were in tune with each other. Have you noticed that?"
"I know what you mean."
He came nearer and stood beside her.
"The thing goes on a long time, before you're conscious of it; at least, it did with me. When I got to London, I didn't realise why I wanted to go straight and call upon the Helstons, until—until I saw you come into the room. Then I knew that all the while I was in Africa, I had been thinking about you.... Are you angry?" for she had turned away a little.
"No, I'm not angry. But ... you know very little of me. I ... never thought about you like that."
"No, I daresay not. But as to knowing—when two people are tuned together, intimacy comes, one hardly knows how. This Easter has been the jolliest time I have ever known. I feel like the chap in Locksley Hall, who thought the grass was greener than usual, and the birds brighter coloured.... This spring is like that to me, because of you—because of you! ... Melicent!"
The girl looked up. She was of those whom excitement renders pale. Her cheek was white, but as if a fire shone through the whiteness. Here was the way definitely open to her, out of the intolerable strain of the past ten day. But she was honest.
"I'm going to disappoint you," she said slowly. "I must. I don't feel like that. I don't believe I ever should. My enthusiasm seems to be for things, not people. I am ambitious and selfish. I suppose, to be ambitious is always to be selfish."
His voice was uneven and broken now, as if it fell over rough edges.