“Come, Inga,” he said, “what’s got to be said must be said. You’ve known that all along and so have I.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, but her eyes dropped down and her hands came together in a straining nervous clasp.
“You mean, then,” he said, “the time has come when you want to go out of my life. Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Inga?”
She raised her eyes again and again, her glance fled from his, but she nodded her head twice in silent acquiescence.
“Oh, Inga!”
He had known it for weeks and yet now that it lay between them immutably written, forever fixed by the nod of her head, he felt dazed by the suddenness of the blow. He caught her up to him, crushing her in his arms and what he said to her in the wild unreasoning phrases that came pouring from his lips he did not know, only that for the moment, faced with the sudden ache of parting, it seemed to him that he loved her completely, absolutely, deliriously, as he had never loved her before.
She neither tried to check nor to answer him. Her head lay weakly on his shoulder, powerless against his strength, and when again he regained his calm he saw the tracks of tears across her face.
“Inga,” he said angrily, catching hold of her wrists, clutching them until they must have hurt her, “you’re not going to do this, you understand? It’s not going to end this way. I won’t have it!”
“I want to talk to you,” she said, shrinking back.
He stopped, walked away from her, buried his head in his hands, and gradually fought his way back to self-control again.