“Do you, Mary?”
She laid her hand on his.
“Tremendously,” she said.
“Ah, if it could only be,” he sighed.
“Would June 14th at half past two be convenient for you?” asked Mary. “They’ll have finished painting the church by then.”
He turned grief-struck eyes to hers.
“Mary,” he said, “it cannot be.”
“Oh, Edwin, what do you mean?”
He spoke as if each word he muttered were a stab.
“There’s a reason,” he said, “why we can never be more than”—emotion nearly strangled him, but he finished—“friends.”