“Yes.”
“From him?”
“Yes, from him.”
He looked at her, seeing the agitation which had her in its grip, surprised at the curious calm in himself, a calm which had in it a sudden sense of pity.
“Inga,” he said gently, “we haven’t said one thing to each other we really thought for months. Don’t you think it is better to talk it out?”
She looked at him; then without quite realizing the sense of what she was doing laid the letter on the shelf of the window and absent-mindedly began to smooth it out, but her eyes were far away.
“I wonder if we can,” she said doubtfully; “some things are so hard to understand.”
He took her by the wrist and led her before the great Florentine fireplace, installed her in one of the big armchairs as though she were a little girl. Then he sat down himself.
“Inga,” he said presently, “whatever we do let’s feel we can say to each other just what we think. It’s the concealing and evasion that does harm. Now understand me. I claim no rights over your life and your actions. Yes, I did once, but that was a time of tempests and jealousies—a wild moment,—very wonderful perhaps to have known but which could only have brought unhappiness to both of us. I look at things differently now. I don’t want you for my slave. I want you as a free companion. You must be that, as free as the day I met you.”
She drew her hands up before her lips and her little teeth closed over her fingers as she stared into the shadows of the fireplace.