For one fleeting instant it did strike Cosimo that if he had not taken down Amory’s hair for her and called her “dear” in the past he might have had more resources at his disposal now—at any rate in the sense that Amory would have apprehended him more quickly; and yet that, too, had its little furtive compensation. His hand could remain where it was....
Amory continued to try to recollect the passage from Sesame and Lilies.
But suddenly she too gave, not a common “Ow!” but a quite sudden start into perception. She moved a little, but the hand on her shoulder did not. With quiet firmness she put her own hand upon it, but her slight effort to draw it away met with resistance. She had seen. She made as if to rise.
“Isn’t it getting late?” she said, looking away over the river.
“Amory—don’t go—you know what I mean——” Cosimo pleaded throatily. “It’s—it’s what I said the other day—you know——”
“Let’s be going, Cosimo,” said Amory. “I really don’t know what you mean by the other day.”
“After you’d seen Dorothy—and I wanted you to marry me—do marry me, dear——”
Somehow his hold of her suddenly loosened, and Amory was on her feet. From the bench twenty yards away two faces watched them through the gloom. Amory looked sorrowfully at Cosimo. She was not angry. She did not pretend that she did not understand.
“Cosimo,” she said, and her voice was low, “I don’t see how you can expect things to be the same after this.”
Cosimo sat helplessly, as if still to sit might be construed as an invitation for her also to resume her place.