"Let me guide you----" His voice was strained, his touch feverish and unsteady, and the convulsive closing of her fingers over his seemed to burn to his very bones.
At the stairs she tried to speak, thanking him, asking pardon for her tears, her loss of self-command, penitent, afraid that she had lowered herself, strained his friendship--troubled him----
"No. I--_want_ you," he said in an odd, indistinct, hesitating voice.... "Things must be cleared up--matters concerning us--affairs----" he muttered.
She closed her eyes a moment and rested both hands on the banisters as though fatigued, then she looked down at him where he stood watching her:
"If you had rather go without me--if it is better for you--less troublesome----"
"I've told you," he said in a dull voice, "I want you. You must fit yourself to go."
"You are so kind to me--so wonderful----"
He merely stared at her; she turned almost wearily to resume her ascent.
She had reached the landing above. She bent over, looking down at him in the dusk.
"It is true. I want you always. I'm just beginning to understand that myself. Please don't ever forget what I say to you now, Dulcie; I want you. I shall always want you. Always! As long as I live."
She leaned heavily on the newel-post above, looking down.
He could not see that her eyes were closed, that her lips moved in voiceless answer. She was only a vague white shape there in the dusk above him--a mystery which seemed to have been suddenly born out of some poignant confusion of his own mind.
He saw her turn, fade into the darkness. And he stood there, not moving, aware of the chaos within him, of shapeless questions being evolved out of this profound disturbance--of an inner consciousness groping with these questions--questions involving other questions and menacing him with the necessity of decision.
After a while, too, he became conscious of his own voice sounding there in the darkness:
"I am very near to love.... I have been close to it.... It would be very easy to fall in love to-night.... But I am wondering--about to-morrow.... And afterward.... But I have been very near--very near to love, to-night...."
The front doorbell rang through the darkness.
When Barres opened the front door he saw Renoux standing there in the shadow of the porch, silhouetted against the starlight. They exchanged a silent grip; Renoux stepped inside; Barres closed the front door.