“You needn’t answer.”
“I do not think so,” I said, without thinking how strange this must sound. “I don’t know—I hardly know anything about her. We are entirely apart in everything,—race, tradition, faith.”
“And if it were not hopeless, David?”
“Don’t ask me.”
We drove on in silence, each to his own thoughts. In the end it was Anne who spoke.
“Just one question: is—is she there—in France?”
“No. She is here. That I said is true. She is gone utterly out of my life. It was her decision. Why? I don’t even know. It was all very beautiful and very tragic. It is over—all except the forgetting.” I drew a long breath and turned to her. “That is going to be a hard fight, but it must be done. I wonder if I should have told you this.”
“Oh, yes, yes! You should have told me.”
“Of course. Anne—I want you to know this, too. With what we have been to each other—we are now—I should never ask anything of you unless I did love you with my whole heart. That is your right. This is a strange conversation, but I think you know me well enough to believe that!”