An hour later, when he remembered the suddenness with which he had prophesied that the day would come when she would go her own way out of his life, he was amazed and puzzled to comprehend the impulse he had obeyed. At the bottom, he believed in no such possibility. What he had said must have been said in some sudden cruelty of love to test her, to know that, if she could quiver before such a possibility, the intensity of her devotion was constant. A little conscience-stricken, he referred to it that evening.
“That was a crazy thing I said about your leaving,” he began lightly. “Queer mood I was in.”
“We can’t help having queer thoughts. That’s natural,” she said quietly, looking down at the floor.
He laughed a full-throated, confident laugh.
“Well, you know, Inga—I did feel that about you—at first.”
“And now?”
“Just try, little viking!”
“And yet you are very”—she stopped and slowly accentuated the word—“very different.”
“How so?” he asked, a little uneasily.
She hesitated and perhaps changed the intention of her answer. “It’s the way you look at me. I think you see me as I am now.”