But she was determined now to stand it, to go through with it and be
engaged as other girls were and as her father wished her to be.
Besides there was nowhere to run to and she could not have stopped him
if she had tried. He was launched, the hour had come, the, to him,
supreme and awful hour, and all the smothered passion and hope and
yearning of the past month burst out.
Once she looked at him and immediately looked away, alarmed and abashed
by his appearance. Even in the faint light she could see his pallor,
the drops on his brow, the drawn desperation of his face. She had
never in her life seen anyone so moved and she began to share his
agitation and wish that anything might happen to bring the interview to
an end.
"Do you care? Do you care?" he urged, trying to look into her face.
She held it down, not so much from modesty as from an aversion to
seeing him so beyond himself, and stammered:
"Of course I care. I always have. Quite a great deal. You know it."
"I never knew," he cried. "I never was sure. Sometimes I thought so
and the next day you were all different. Say you do.
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