“Colin, I never knew until just this minute. Isn’t it curious.... I’m so glad, so glad.”
The hands held hers very tightly, the warm, capable hands that had always held her heart so safely, so securely, if she had only known it. He was looking at her as though he could never look enough. She knew now the love that she had wanted so badly, so desperately, had been at her side all the time, faithful, tender, and, what means so much to a woman, understanding.
The scent of the honeysuckle, delicately persistent over the other field flowers, was around them both. The windmill across the field was giving slow, rheumatic creaks. A bird was chirping noisily in the bushy hedge.
“Claudia, you can’t mean that you——”
“Yes.... I think I have always loved you, only I didn’t realize it. The very strength of my love made it so quiet that I didn’t notice it. When you are a girl you imagine that love will come with a great stir and noise, with a flourish of trumpets, so that all your senses will be deafened, and you will be bound a captive. One doesn’t think of it as a great, noiseless, silent thing.” She gave a queer little laugh that was a half sigh. “One always expects the big drum, a sort of circus, in fact.... Oh, my dear! I’m so glad I know. That’s all I can think of now.”
As she looked at him she saw that his love for her had taken its toll. There were little lines round the eyes—lines of repression, of unsatisfied desire that had not been there when she first knew him. He had suffered in that year in the Argentine when, because he was very human, he could not bear the sight of her happiness, when he had fled from her. He had schooled himself to be her friend, to aid her whenever she should call upon him, after that year, but it had not been done easily. Most men would have ridden away, unable to fulfil the demands of friendship, unwilling to bear the continued sting which the sight of her brought them. She saw now that his one aim had always been to make her happy, he himself had always come in a poor second. Gilbert had wanted her to make him happy, and she had chosen—Gilbert!
“Oh, Colin!” she cried, “I don’t deserve that you should have gone on caring for me all this time.”
“Claudia, I can’t believe it. I’ve hungered for your love so long that, like a starving man, I can’t eat. I tried to be content with your friendship. I tried not to think of you in any other way, even when——”
“Yes?”
How steady and tender her eyes were.