Gerald sat talking to her one afternoon in the warm study down at the Mill. Rupert had not yet come home.
“You are happy?” Gerald asked her, with a smile.
“Very happy!” she cried, shrinking a little in her brightness.
“Yes, one can see it.”
“Can one?” cried Ursula in surprise.
He looked up at her with a communicative smile.
“Oh yes, plainly.”
She was pleased. She meditated a moment.
“And can you see that Rupert is happy as well?”
He lowered his eyelids, and looked aside.
“Oh yes,” he said.
“Really!”
“Oh yes.”
He was very quiet, as if it were something not to be talked about by him. He seemed sad.
She was very sensitive to suggestion. She asked the question he wanted her to ask.
“Why don’t you be happy as well?” she said. “You could be just the same.”
He paused a moment.
“W
