It was pretty dark in
the room, but his face in the dusk seemed to have whitened.
"Is friendship all you want of me, Roddy?" she asked again.
She stood there waiting, a full minute, in silence. Then she said, "You
don't have to tell me that. Because I know. Oh--oh, my dear, how well I
know!"
He didn't come to her; just stood there, gripping the corner of her
bookcase and staring at her silhouette, which was about all he could see
of her against the window. At last he said, in a strained dry voice
she'd hardly have known for his:
"If you know that--if I've let you see that, then I've done just
about the last despicable thing there was left for me to do. I've
come down here and--made you feel sorry for me. So that with
that--divine--kindliness of yours, you're willing to give
me--everything."
He straightened up and came a step nearer. "Well, I won't have it, I
tell you! I don't know how you guessed. If I'd dreamed I was betraying
that to you ...! Don't I know--it's burnt into me so that I'll never
forget--what the memory of my love must be to you--the memory of the
hideous things it's done to you.
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