‘Oh, I wouldn’t have known it was the same story by reading it in the papers.’
‘I see—’
She was changed—less glitter somehow, as if her light came from deeper in, a light more delicate. She had on a creamy dress, no folds in it, but not tight anywhere. This meeting wasn’t like the first time in the Señora’s house; nor yet, was it like the sense of her which had come in the hospital, from so many hours of pondering over the separate sentences of her letter. Suddenly he knew he must never tie himself to any particular moment when with her, because she wasn’t going to be the same the next time. Tying to one meeting would keep him from catching on to all that the next held in store. His mind clung for a moment, however, to the memory of the alabaster bowl at home, while she was still going on about the newspapers.
‘They didn’t see you. They didn’t know what we did—what we tried to do. They sort of laughed at us, and talked of your great bravery, but there was something no one saw—’
She was standing at his left—a hush between the sentences. ‘... They didn’t know that somebody was helping us—’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean it wasn’t just your strength. Why, you were like one dead; and yet you still drove. It was only when we were safe that your hand relaxed—’
‘A case of knowing I had to, wasn’t it?’
‘More than that. That helped, of course, but there was something more—’
He said: ‘I didn’t know much of what was happening at the time—that is, to remember, but I had a feeling you were helping—’