“But what has happened?” she said.
“Nothing—it’s all in myself—it only comes out just now. We’re always like this towards Easter-time.”
He grovelled so helplessly, she pitied him. At least she never floundered in such a pitiable way. After all, it was he who was chiefly humiliated.
“What do you want?” she asked him.
“Why—I mustn’t come often—that’s all. Why should I monopolise you when I’m not—You see, I’m deficient in something with regard to you—”
He was telling her he did not love her, and so ought to leave her a chance with another man. How foolish and blind and shamefully clumsy he was! What were other men to her! What were men to her at all! But he, ah! she loved his soul. Was he deficient in something? Perhaps he was.
“But I don’t understand,” she said huskily. “Yesterday—”
T
