oured
herself with calling, without words, her relation with him.

CHAPTER XI

She would have admitted indeed that it consisted of little more than the
fact that his absences, however frequent and however long, always ended
with his turning up again. It was nobody's business in the world but her
own if that fact continued to be enough for her. It was of course not
enough just in itself; what it had taken on to make it so was the
extraordinary possession of the elements of his life that memory and
attention had at last given her. There came a day when this possession
on the girl's part actually seemed to enjoy between them, while their
eyes met, a tacit recognition that was half a joke and half a deep
solemnity. He bade her good morning always now; he often quite raised
his hat to her. He passed a remark when there was time or room, and once
she went so far as to say to him that she hadn't seen him for "ages."
"Ages" was the word she consciously and carefully, though a trifle
tremulously used; "ages" was exactly what she meant. To this he replied
in terms doubtless less anxiously selected, but perhaps on that account
not the less remarkable, "Oh yes, hasn't it been awfully wet?" That was
a specimen of their give and take; it fed her fancy that no form of
intercourse so transcendent and distilled had ever been established on
earth. Everything, so far as they chose to consider it so, might mean
almost anything. The want of margin in the cage, when he peeped through
the bars, wholly ceased to be appreciable. It was a drawback only in
superficial commerce. With Captain Everard she had simply the margin of
the universe. It may be imagined therefore how their unuttered reference
to all she knew about him could in this immensity play at its ease. Every
time he handed in a telegram it was an addition to her knowledge: what
did his constant smile mean to mark if it didn't mean to mark that? He
never came into the place without saying to her in this manner: "Oh yes,
you have me by this time so completely at your mercy that it doesn't in
the least matter what I give you now. You've become a comfort, I assure
you!"

She had only two torments; the greatest of which was that she couldn't,
not even once or twice, touch with him on some individual fact. She
would have given anything to have been able to allude to one of his
friends by name, to one of his engagements by date, to one of his
difficulties by the s