It was not normal that he should be possessed by a desire to keep
near to her, overwhelmed by an impelling wish to talk to her--to
ask her questions. About what--about herself--themselves--the years
between--about the garden.
"It began to come back bit by bit after I had two fair looks. You
passed me several times though you didn't know." (Oh! had she not
known!) "I had been promised some dances by other people. But I
went to Lady Lothwell. She's very kind."
Back swept the years and it had all begun again, the wonderful
happiness--just as the anguish had swept back on the night her
mother had come to talk to her. As he had brought it into her
dreary little world then, he brought it now. He had the power.
She was so happy that she seemed to be only waiting to hear what
he would say--as if that were enough. There are phases like this--rare
ones--and it was her fate that through such a phase she was passing.
It was indeed true that much more water had passed under his
bridge than under hers, but now--! Memory reproduced for him with
an acuteness like actual pain, a childish torment he thought he had
forgotten. And it was as if it had been endured only yesterday--and
as if the urge to speak and explain was as intense as it had been
on the first day.
"She's very little and she won't understand," he had said to his
mother. "She's very little, really--perhaps she'll cry.
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