"It won't weigh with you," he said, "but I 'd be sorry if you went. I would, personally—awfully sorry. But if you must go, you must. It 's a thing you can judge for yourself. Still, I 'd be sorry."
Margaret shrugged impatiently.
"Oh, I 'd be sorry, too. It 's been jolly, in a way, with you here, and all that. I 'd miss you, if you want to know. But—"
She stopped. Ford was looking at her very gravely.
"Don't go," he said, and put his thin, sun-browned hand upon her shoulder. "It 'll make things simpler for me if you say you won't. Things will arrange themselves, but even if they don't—don't go away."
"Simpler? How do you mean?"
"Just that," he answered. "If you stay, here we are—friends. We help each other out and talk and see each other and have time before us and there 's no need to say anything. And it's because a lunger like me must n't say anything till he sees whether he 's going to get well or—or stay here forever, that it 'll be simpler if you don't go. Do you see?"
His hand upon her shoulder was pleasant to feel; she liked the freedom he took—and gave—in resting it there; and his young, serious face, touched to delicacy by the disease that governed him, was patient and wise.
"It 's not because of that that you mustn't say anything," she answered. "I did n't know—you 've given me no warning. What can I say?"
"Say you won't go," he begged. "Say you won't act on any decision you 've made at present. And then we can go on—me lecturing you, and you flouting me, till—till I can say things—till I 'm free to say what I like to anybody."