“And you won’t take me for yours?”
“Be reasonable, Miss Welland.”
“I suppose it’s a question of the conventionalities,” she mocked.
“I don’t know or care anything about the conventionalities—”
“Nor I,” she interrupted. “Out here.”
“—but my guess would be that they apply only to people who live in the same world. We don’t, you and I.”
“That’s rather shrewd of you,” she observed.
“It isn’t an easy matter to talk about to a young girl, you know.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” she returned with composure. “Just take it for granted that I know about all there is to be known and am not afraid of it. I’m not afraid of anything, I think, except of—of having to go back just now.” She rose and went to him, looking down into his eyes. “A woman knows whom she can trust in—in certain things. That’s her gift, a gift no man has or quite understands. Dazed as I was last night, I knew I could trust you. I still know it. So we may dismiss that.”
“That is true,” said Banneker, “so far as it goes.”