It was a purely
mechanical effect, because she was neither surprised nor puzzled. In
fact, she could understand him better then than at any moment since she
first set eyes on him.
He laughed scornfully.
"What am I thinking of?" he cried. "As if it could matter to me what
anybody had ever said or believed, from the beginning of the world till
the crack of doom!"
"I never heard you laugh till today," she observed. "This is the second
time!"
He scrambled to his feet and towered above her.
"That's because, when one's heart has been broken into in the way you
have broken into mine, all sorts of weaknesses are free to enter--shame,
anger, stupid indignation, stupid fears--stupid laughter, too. I wonder
what interpretation you are putting on it?"
"It wasn't gay, certainly," she said. "But why are you angry with me?
Are you sorry you took me away from those beasts? I told you who I was.
You could see it."
"Heavens!" he muttered. He had regained his command of himself. "I
assure you I could see much more than you could tell me. I could see
quite a lot that you don't even suspect yet, but you can't be seen quite
through."
He sank to the ground by her side and took her hand. She asked gently:
"What more do you want from me?"
He made no sound for a time.
"The impossible, I suppose," he said very low, as one makes a
confidence, and pressing the hand he grasped.
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