“Sit here, beside me,” she said, moving a little on the couch. “I want to talk to you.”
Wondering at something in her voice, he obeyed in silence, and she went on speaking, still very quietly.
“I won’t marry you, dear, because I’m too old for you. I will never marry you. But if you want me, I will stay.”
In his amazement, he let her hands drop, and bent forward to see her face.
Quite quietly, Anne got up. “It’s very dark,” she said. “I’ll light the candles. I saw where you put the matches.”
He watched her in a sort of stupor as she went to a side table for the matches, and lighted one after another of the candles in a sconce on the opposite side of the room.
Did she know what she had said? Had he understood her?
He sat staring at her as she reached up to the sconce, the movement throwing into relief the lines of her beautiful figure.
When the last candle was lighted, she turned to him smiling.
“No. You haven’t misunderstood me,” she said. “Now you can see my face you will know you have not.”