They were to go the scant half mile across the lake in the motor boat at noon and lunch at her old home. She was ready a few minutes before time, and started toward the Smoke House. Halfway she stopped and turned back. No, she could not interrupt him there again. His manner, unconscious, more impressive than any deliberate look or word, made her feel that the Smoke House was set in an enchanted wood which she could not penetrate until She smiled tenderly.
At half past twelve he came on the run. "Why didn’t you telephone?" exclaimed he. "We’ll be scandalously late. I’m so sorry. When I get to work down there I forget everything. I even forgot I was married."
She busied herself with the buttons of her glove, and the brim of her hat hid her face. And such a few hours ago he and she were all in all to each other!
She thought she was forgiving him; the hurt would soon pass. So she gave him a look that passed muster with his unobservant eyes. "Don’t worry. We’ll soon be there."
They got under way, he at the motor, she watching his back. On impulse she moved nearer. "Dick," she said. "Don’t turn round. I want to say something to you that’s very hard to say.... I feel I ought to warn you. At college the girls called it one of my worst traits. When anyone I care for hurts me, I don’t say anything—I even hide it. And they don’t realize—and keep on hurting—until— Oh, I’ve lost several friends that way. For—the time comes— I don’t let on, and it gets to be too late—and I don’t care any more."
"No—not that—not that alone. Not any one thing. Not anything at all yet—but a kind of a shadow. Just—you’ve made me feel as if I weren’t to be part of you—of your life. No, I don’t say it right. I’ve felt as if I were to be part of you, but that you weren’t to be part of me."
He began to laugh, believing that the proper way to dispel a mood so unreal. But glancing at her he saw she was shrinking and literally quivering with pain. His face sobered. He reminded himself that women could not be dealt with on a basis of reason and sense, since they had those qualities only in rudimentary form. As his hands were occupied, he was puzzled how to treat this his first experience with feminine sweet unreasonableness in her. All he could do toward pacifying was to say soothingly, as to a sensitive child: "I understand, sweetheart. I must be very—very careful."