Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/417

 really meant, not to what he was saying in those poor, plain, broken words.

And yet, how could he go on?

The sudden plunge he had made, deep into an element new to him, the utter strangeness of his having thus spoken out what he had before but shyly glanced at, the awfulness of having opened his heart to the day, his shut, shut heart.… Good God, what was he doing?

At his silence, she raised her face towards him. To his amazement her eyes were shining wet with tears. And yet there was no sadness in her face. She was smiling at him, a wavering, misty smile.

She stood up, made a little, flexible, eloquent gesture with her hands and arms and shoulders, as if to explain to him that she could not trust herself to speak, and, still smiling at him, the tears still in her eyes, walked rapidly away.