Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/177

 but I held on, trying to say something of what I meant.

"I never tried to interfere," she broke in once.

"I made you interfere, I myself," was my lame answer; and the rest I said was as lame.

"I don't understand," she murmured forlornly and petulantly. "Oh, I suppose I see what you mean in a way; but I don't believe it. I don't see why you should feel like that about it. Do men feel like that? Women don't."

"I can't help it," I pleaded, pressing her hand. She drew it away gently.

"And what will it mean?" she asked. "Am I never to see you?"

"Often, often, I hope, but"

"I'm not to talk to you about—about important things, things we both care about?"

I felt the absurdity of such a position. The abstract made concrete is so often made absurd.

"Then you won't come often; you won't care about coming." Something in her thoughts made her flush suddenly. She met my eyes and took courage. "You asked a good deal of me," she said.

I made no answer; she understood my silence. She rose, leaving me on my knees. I threw myself on the sofa and she went to the hearthrug. She knew that what I had asked of her I asked no more. There was a long silence between us. At last she spoke in a very low voice.

"It's only a little sooner than it must have been," she said. "And I—I suppose I must be glad that it's come home to me now instead of—later. I daresay you'll be glad of that too, Augustin."

"How are we to live, how are we to meet, what are we to be to one another?" she broke out the