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 “If you have no feeling for me, wouldn’t it be kinder to say so to me in private?”

“Oh, William,” she burst out, as if he had interrupted some absorbing train of thought, “how you go on about feelings! Isn’t it better not to talk so much, not to be worrying always about small things that don’t really matter?”

“That’s the question precisely,” he exclaimed. “I only want you to tell me that they don’t matter. There are times when you seem indifferent to everything. I’m vain, I’ve a thousand faults; but you know they’re not everything; you know I care for you.”

“And if I say that I care for you, don’t you believe me?”

“Say it, Katharine! Say it as if you meant it! Make me feel that you care for me!”

She could not force herself to speak a word. The heather was growing dim around them, and the horizon was blotted out by white mist. To ask her for passion or for certainty seemed like asking that damp prospect for fierce blades of fire, or the faded sky for the intense blue vault of June.

He went on now to tell her of his love for her, in words which bore, even to her critical senses, the stamp of truth; but none of this touched her, until, coming to a gate whose hinge was rusty, he heaved it open with his shoulder, still talking and taking no account of his effort. The virility of this deed impressed her; and yet, normally, she attached no value to the power of opening gates. The strength of muscles has nothing to do on the face of it with the strength of affections; nevertheless, she felt a sudden concern for this power running to waste on her account, which, combined with a desire to keep possession of that strangely attractive masculine power, made her rouse herself from her torpor.