"No—"
"You are! I'm not what you expected—not what you wanted—"
"You are everything I want!—if I could only wake your heart!" he said in a low tense voice.
"It isn't my heart that is asleep.... I know what you miss in me.... And I can't help it. I—I don't wish to help it—or to be different."
She dropped her head against his shoulder. After a few moments she spoke from there in a muffled, childish voice:
"What can I do about it? I don't want to be your mistress, Clive.... I never wanted to do—anything—like that."
A deeper colour burnt his face. He said: "Could you love me enough to marry me if I managed to free myself?"
"I have never thought of marrying you, Clive. It isn't that I couldn't love you—that way. I suppose I could. Probably I could. Only—I don't know anything about it—"
"Let me try to free myself, anyway."