“I don't know—oh, yes—perhaps, if we are very good in this war, and do all we can to make orderly our little circle of things in the great chaos—perhaps we may earn that winter cabin and the fireplace and the stillness. To plan our garden in the winter days—-”
“I wish I hadn't spoken of it. It's almost unearthly far—in such a time. But, Berthe, will you ever be satisfied with one who hasn't the white fire of passion—as you have, in the cause of the peasants?”
“Oh, that's what I wanted to tell you. We are to be separated. We are grown up—a man and a woman. We dare speak to each other. At least, I dare.... Peter, I couldn't love you if you were all that—all that—-” She hesitated.
“All that you missed in me last night?” he suggested.
“Yes, but I didn't miss it exactly. I was excited and overwrought. You are splendid with me. It is when others are near, that you are—cold and unemotional. I know it's your training—that thing you Americans have from the English. You are that way with men. You are not so with me. But, if you were like Fallows, or like my father, I could not love you. I would not dare—-”
“Why?”
“First, I could not—and then I would not dare. First, that which we are, we do not love. We love another kind—for completion——”
“Clearly said. That must be true,” he answered quickly. “And why would you not dare?”
“Because we should have a little baby, and it would suffer so in coming years. Peter, the poise and the balance—the very qualities I need in you, and which I love, the little baby would require as his gift from his father.”