“Yes, but I could respect it. Another man might not. He might laugh at you. But there's no use talking about it. If you can think in that way you can't care for me—yet.”
The tide had nearly covered the mud-banks and twenty little ripples broke on the beach before Maisie chose to speak.
“Dick,” she said slowly, “I believe very much that you are better than I am.”
“This doesn't seem to bear on the argument—but in what way?”
“I don't quite know, but in what you said about work and things; and then you're so patient. Yes, you're better than I am.”
Dick considered rapidly the murkiness of an average man's life. There was nothing in the review to fill him with a sense of virtue. He lifted the hem of the cloak to his lips.
“Why,” said Maisie, making as though she had not noticed, “can you see things that I can't? I don't believe what you believe; but you're right, I believe.”
“If I've seen anything, God knows I couldn't have seen it but for you, and I know that I couldn't have said it except to you. You seemed to make everything clear for a minute; but I don't practice what I preach. You would help me... There are only us two in the world for all purposes, and—and you like to have me with you?”
“Of course I do. I wonder if you can realise how utterly lonely I am!”
“Darling, I think I can.”