"I'm sorry, Clay. I know. I am just reckless to-day. You know I am
reckless. It's my vice. But sometimes--we'd better talk about the mill."
But he could not talk about the mill just then. They walked along in
silence, and after a little he felt her touch his arm.
"Wouldn't it be better just to have it out?" she asked, wistfully. "That
wouldn't hurt anybody, would it?"
"I'm afraid, Audrey."
"I'm not," she said proudly. "I sometimes think--oh, I think such a lot
these days--that if we talked these things over, I'd recover my--friend.
I've lost him now, you see. And I'm so horribly lonely, Clay."
"Lost him!"
"Lost him," she repeated. "I've lost my friend, and I haven't gained
anything. It didn't hurt anybody for us to meet now and then, Clay. You
know that. I wish you would understand," she added impatiently. "I only
want to go back to things as they were. I want you to come in now and
then. We used to talk about all sorts of things, and I miss that.
Plenty of people come, but that's different. It's only your occasional
companionship I want. I don't want you to come and make love to me."
"You say you have missed the companionship," he said rather unsteadily.
"I wonder if you think I haven't?"
"I know you have, my dear. And that is why I want you to come. To come
without being afraid that I expect or want anything else. Surely we can
manage that."
He smiled down at her, rather wryly, at her straight courageous figure,
her brave eyes, meeting his so directly. How like her it all was, the
straightforwardness of it, the absence of coquetry. And once again he
knew, not only that he loved her with all the depths of him, of his
strong body and his vigorous mind, but that she was his woman. The one
woman in the world for him. It was as though all his life he had been
searching for her, and he had found her, and it was too late. She knew
it, too. It was in her very eyes.
"I have wanted to come, terribly," he said finally. And when she held
out her hand to him, he bent down and kissed it.
"Then that's settled," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "And now I'll
tell you about Clare. I'm rather proud of her."
"Clare?"
The tension had been so great that he had forgotten the blonde girl
entirely.