Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/246

234 “Well,” said Miss Grammont in her soft even voice. “We love one another. Is that so still?”

“I could not love you more.”

“It wasn’t a dream?”

“No.”

“And to-morrow we part?”

He looked her in the eyes. “I have been thinking of that all night,” he said at last.

“I too.”

“And you think——?”

“That we must part. Just as we arranged it—when was it? Three days or three ages ago? There is nothing else in the world to do except for us to go our ways.... I love you. That means for a woman—— It means that I want to be with you. But that is impossible.... Don’t doubt whether I love you because I say—impossible....”

Sir Richmond, faced with his own nocturnal decision, was now moved to oppose it flatly. “Nothing that one can do is impossible.”

She glanced again at Belinda and bent down towards him. “Suppose,” she said, “you got back into that car with me; suppose that instead of going on as we have planned, you took me—away. How much of us would go?”

“You would go,” said Sir Richmond, “and my heart.”

“And this work of yours? And your honour? For the honour of a man in this New Age of