Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/34

20 "I'll tell you my reasons when you tell me yours for having changed."

"I've not changed," said Jean.

It was as if their eyes were indissolubly engaged. That was the way he had been looking a while before into another woman's, but he could think at this moment of the exquisite difference of Jean's. He shook his head with all the sadness and all the tenderness he felt he might permit himself to show just this once and never again. "You've changed—you've changed."

Then she gave up. "Wouldn't you much rather I should never come back?"

"Far rather. But you will come back," said Tony.

She looked away from him at last—turned her eyes over the place in which she had known none but emotions permitted and avowed, and again seemed to yield to the formidable truth. "So you think I had better come back—so different?"

His tenderness broke out into a smile. "As different as possible. As different as that will be just all the difference," he added.

She appeared, with her averted face, to consider