“But I wish to know——” she replied.
He laughed resentfully.
“You always do,” he said.
“It’s not fair to me,” she murmured.
He thrust, thrust, thrust at the ground with the pointed stick, digging up little clods of earth as if he were in a fever of irritation. She gently and firmly laid her hand on his wrist.
“Don’t!” she said. “Put it away.”
He flung the stick into the currant-bushes, and leaned back. Now he was bottled up.
“What is it?” she pleaded softly.
He lay perfectly still, only his eyes alive, and they full of torment.
“You know,” he said at length, rather wearily—” you know—we’d better break off.”
It was what she dreaded. Swiftly everything seemed to darken before her eyes.
“Why!” she murmured. “What has happened?”
“Nothing has happened. We only realize where we are. It’s no good——”
She waited in silence, sadly, patiently. It was no good being impatient with him. At any rate, he would tell her now what ailed him.
“We agreed on friendship,” he went on in a dull, monotonous voice. “How often have we agreed for friendship! And yet—it neither stops there, nor gets anywhere else.”
He was silent again. She brooded. What did he mean? He was so wearying. There was something he would not yield. Yet she must be patient with him.
“I can only give friendship—it’s all I’m capable of—it’s a flaw in my make-up. The thing overbalances to one side—I hate a toppling balance. Let us have done.”
There was warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted. It was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was so deep she dared neither realize nor acknowledge it. Perhaps she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She would never let herself want him. She would merely see.
“But what has happened?” she said.
“Nothing—it’s all in myself—it only comes out just now. We’re always like this towards Easter-time.”
He grovelled so helplessly, she pitied him. At least she
