“Don’t say if it exist; it must, else it were never worth one’s while to give up anything.”
“Is giving up worth it? Is it?” he asked. “Why not take all one can get? it is little enough. I love you,” he added softly, and put one arm round her.
“Don’t,” she said sharply, “_don’t_; I cannot bear being touched.”
“No, I love no one. I like you, we are friends. You like what I do. You must not spoil it by loving me.”
“What did George mean when he said you had cried one night after dancing with me?”
“No; oh, no. It had nothing to do with you personally. Can’t we be as we were?”
“I have always loved you. I long to help and comfort you, to make you happy. Do you think that impossible?”
“Is it inconvenient? My dearest, I did not mean it.”
“Because she cares for me she was afraid happiness was never coming,” he thought.
A man always attributes a woman’s refusing to tell him how much she cares to her being too shy to talk of it; never to her not caring enough. “Yet does she care?” he wondered. That he might still doubt, and not be obliged to think of settlements and the wedding ring was satisfactory, it left an element of uncertainty in their relations; he could dare to be tender, yet not too loving. Men marry because there is nothing else to do, he thought. They know all about their future wives, their affection is returned, it is satiating—there is nothing new.
Ten minutes afterwards Launa was singing Darkey songs for him, and laughing as if her quest for happiness were over—successfully.
As he bade her good-bye, she gave him her hand.
“Yes; all. Next time I shall not shake hands, between friends it is unnecessary.”
“Do,” she replied. “You could not well do anything else.”
He could not feel sure that it was time even to think a wedding ring would ever be required.
LONDON and December—fogs and fires—cosy rooms and misery, side by side.
Lily came to breakfast, and found her husband waiting with her letters.
“Why have you come? I said neither of us was to disturb the other when either was ill.”
“I am not ill. I have arrived because you chose me for better, for worse, and now you let me have my breakfast alone. I hate breakfast, and I love you. You do not greet me with joy.”
“After breakfast. It is too early for anything except tea.”