"
"It's _my_ happiness. It's all I've got. It's all I've ever had."
"What is?"
"Seeing you. Or not even seeing you. Knowing you're there."
"Poor child. Does that make you happy?"
"Utterly happy. Always."
"I didn't know."
He stooped forward, hiding his face in his hands.
"You don't realise it. You've no idea what it'll mean to be boxed up
in this place together, all our lives, with this between us."
"It's always been between us. We shall be no worse off. It may have
been bad now and then, but conceive what it'll be like when you go."
"I suppose it would be pretty beastly for you if I did go."
"Would it be too awful for you if you stayed?"
He was a long time before he answered.
"Not if it really made you happier."
"Happier?"
She smiled her pitiful, strained smile. It said, "Don't you see that
it would kill me if you went?"
And again it was by her difference, her helplessness, that she had
him.
He too smiled drearily.
"You don't suppose I really could have left you?"
He saw that it was impossible, unthinkable, that he should leave her.
He rose. She went with him to the door. She thought of something
there.
"Steven," she said, "don't worry about to-night. It was all my fault."
"You--you," he murmured. "You're adorable."
"It was really," she said. "I made you come in."
She gave him her cold hand. He raised it and brushed it with his lips
and put it from him.
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