was possible.

There had been nothing worse than that. Except that one dreadful minute
last year when he had wanted to raise her salary--afterwards--and she had
said "What _for_?" And their faces had turned from each other, flaming
with the fire of her refusal.

What had he really thought of her? Did he think she wanted to get
anything out of their passion? What could you want to get out of it, or
give, but joy? Pure joy. Beauty.

At the bend of the road the trees parted. A slender blue channel of sky
flowed overhead between the green tops.

If not joy, then truth; reality. The clear reality of yourself, Charlotte
Redhead. Of Gibson Herbert. Even now it would be all right so long as you
knew what it was and didn't lie about it.

That evening in the office when he came to her--she could remember the
feeling that shot up suddenly and ran over her and shook her brain,
making her want him to take her in his arms. It was that. It had never
been anything but that. She _had_ wanted him to take her, and he knew
it. Only, if he hadn't come to her and looked at her she wouldn't have
thought of it; she would have gone on working for him without
thinking. That was what he didn't know, what he wouldn't have believed
if you had told him.

She had come to the top of the hill. At the crossroads she saw the grey
front of her inn, the bow window jutting, small black shining panes
picked out with the clean white paint of the frame-work.