"I've said I'll come to-morrow. Eric, you're not jealous of my dining with other people? You're talking as if you were trying to pick a quarrel. You were always so sweet.…"
"I'm not conscious of having changed," he answered stiffly.
But he was conscious of a change in her. While he was still indifferent, she had prostrated herself before him; when he confessed his love, she gathered up his own cast robes of indifference. It was feminine nature, and her "education" of him was at least illustrating the sex-generalizations which a man ought to have learned before leaving his dame's-school.
"Don't let's quarrel, darling!" she begged. "Whatever you ask, I'll do! But, when I give, I want to give everything. Won't you be patient with me?"
Ever since her return to England, Eric's nerves had been strained until he found it first difficult and then impossible to work or sleep. When he met her, there was always some trifling cause of annoyance; when he stayed away, there was hunger and loneliness.
"I wonder how long you'd like me to be patient," he murmured.
"Before I marry you? Is that what you mean? Eric, I promise in the sight of God that I'll marry you as soon as I can do it with a good conscience. You don't want me to be haunted all my life. And now, when we even speak of it … It's my punishment."
"I'm sorry, Barbara. I've made you look quite miserable."
She bent his head forward and kissed him.
"I've never been really miserable since I knew that you loved me," she whispered.