“No you don’t. Don’t be silly, David.”
“Why? Don’t you love me?”
It was strange how little he protested. He felt this. Already he believed her. But if he did, what was all this between them? What infamy?
She seemed to read his consternation. She lifted herself and kissed his eyes and his hot dry lips.
“You don’t love me. And I don’t love you. But we are very fond of each other.”
He was deeply ashamed. He wanted to move away: to cover himself. He did not know how. He did not dare in any way to move. He sat there, fixed in contemplation of the havoc these few words had made of all the structure of his thoughts: regarding the wreckage with dim eyes, but amazed most that the wreckage did not move him more, leave him more empty: that life—and this—should still be possible.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“Constance!” It was a cry of help for his dreams.
“You are a darling. I shan’t risk losing you by not having you know me and yourself as we really are.... Why, David dear? Aren’t you even fond of me?” She had her arm about him. “Kiss me, then. There.” She was half laughing. She was a bewilderment of delight upon him. She was half laughing at him.
Like a mirage, split by a stroke of the sun, his picture of their love faded away. He had not defended it. It was no more. Yet he was not empty. He was less serious, less loaded than before. It had been a mirage of paradise in a desert. It was gone. But the desert through which to trudge to reach it was gone also. Here was green earth.