"Well, then, that's because 'there' it's so wonderful!"

"Then you're conscious of how wonderful it is?" she returned.

He jerked his handsome head in literal protest at a doubt. "Why that's
exactly what I mean by my gratitude for all your trouble. It has been
just as if you took a particular interest." She only looked at him by
way of answer in such sudden headlong embarrassment, as she was quite
aware, that while she remained silent he showed himself checked by her
expression. "You _have_--haven't you?--taken a particular interest?"

"Oh a particular interest!" she quavered out, feeling the whole thing--her
headlong embarrassment--get terribly the better of her, and wishing, with
a sudden scare, all the more to keep her emotion down. She maintained
her fixed smile a moment and turned her eyes over the peopled darkness,
unconfused now, because there was something much more confusing. This,
with a fatal great rush, was simply the fact that they were thus
together. They were near, near, and all she had imagined of that had
only become more true, more dreadful and overwhelming. She stared
straight away in silence till she felt she looked an idiot; then, to say
something, to say nothing, she attempted a sound which ended in a flood
of tears.




CHAPTER XVI