that I spoke the truth when I considered it seriously.

"He said, 'Then that's all right.' Then he laughed a little and said,
'Do you always call me Professor Fowler, even when you shut your door on
the world at night and are all alone with God and the silence?'

"'And Claudia Jones,' I added, stupidly.

"He considered that seriously and said, 'I didn't know about Claudia
Jones; she may inhibit even the silence and the other ingredient. I
suppose you call me Teacher.'

"I cried out at that. 'I might call you _cher maitre_, as they do her.'

"He said, 'That may do for the present.'

"'We looked into the fire and the lilacs filled the pause as adequately
as Chopin could have done. All at once he got up and came over to me--it
seemed the most natural thing in the world--across that wilderness of
sofa.

"'I suppose,' he said, 'that you won't let me off that promise.'

"'No, no!' I cried, all my old panic flooding over me again. I threw my
hands out, and suddenly he had caught them in his and was holding me
half away from him, and he was saying, in that tragic voice of his:

"'No, no! But give me something to make it bearable.'"

"Allah, the compassionate!" sighed Hugh, in ecstasy. He had never dared
hope for all this. His very being went on tiptoe for fear of breathing
too loud.

"We sat there for ages and ages, gazing into the fire, not saying a
word. Then he spoke ... every now and then. He said:

"'The horrible thing would have been never to have known you. Now that
I've touched you I'm magnetized for life. I can't lose you again.'

"'It isn't I,' I told him. 'It's only what you think me.'

"'You are the only creature outside of myself that I ever found myself
in,' he said. 'And I could look into you like Narcissus until I died.
You are home and Nirvana. That's what you are. When I look at you I
believe in God. You gallantest, most foolhardy, little, fragile thing,
you, you're not afraid of anything. You trust this rotten life, don't
you? You expect to find lovely things everywhere, and you will, just
because they'll spring up around your feet. You'll save your world like
all redeemers simply by being in it.'

"No woman ever had such things said to her as he said to me. But most
of the time we said nothing. There wasn't any past or future; there was
only the touch of his shoulder and his hands all around mine. It was
like coming in out of the cold; it was like being on a hill above the
sea, and listening