"He said, 'That may do for the present.'
"'We looked into the fire and the lilacs filled the pause as adequately as Chopin could have done. All at once he got up and came over to me—it seemed the most natural thing in the world—across that wilderness of sofa.
"'I suppose,' he said, 'that you won't let me off that promise.'
"'No, no!' I cried, all my old panic flooding over me again. I threw my hands out, and suddenly he had caught them in his and was holding me half away from him, and he was saying, in that tragic voice of his:
"'No, no! But give me something to make it bearable.'"
"Allah, the compassionate!" sighed Hugh, in ecstasy. He had never dared hope for all this. His very being went on tiptoe for fear of breathing too loud.
"We sat there for ages and ages, gazing into the fire, not saying a word. Then he spoke … every now and then. He said:
"'The horrible thing would have been never to have known you. Now that
I've touched you I'm magnetized for life. I can't lose you again.'
"'It isn't I,' I told him. 'It's only what you think me.'
"'You are the only creature outside of myself that I ever found myself in,' he said. 'And I could look into you like Narcissus until I died. You are home and Nirvana. That's what you are. When I look at you I believe in God. You gallantest, most foolhardy, little, fragile thing, you, you're not afraid of anything. You trust this rotten life, don't you? You expect to find lovely things everywhere, and you will, just because they'll spring up around your feet. You'll save your world like all redeemers simply by being in it.'