ave fallen in love with _you_, if it hadn't been for your
goodness. But I shouldn't have fallen in love with your goodness in any
other woman."

"Have you known many other women?"

"One way and another, in the course of my life--yes. And what I liked so
much about you was your difference from those other women. You gave me
rest from them and their ways. They bored me even when I was half in love
with them, and made me restless for them even when I wasn't a little bit.
It was as if they were always expecting something from me--I couldn't
for the life of me tell what--always on the look out, don't you know, for
some mysterious moment that never arrived."

She thought she knew. She felt that he was describing vaguely and with
incomparable innocence the approaches of the ladies who had once designed
to marry him. He had never seen through them; they (and they must have
been so obvious, those ladies) had remained for him inscrutable,
mysterious. He could deal competently with effects, but he was not clever
at assigning causes.

He seemed conscious of her reflections. "They were quite nice, don't you
know. Only they couldn't let you alone. You let me alone so perfectly.
Being with you was peace."

"I see," she said quietly. "It was peace. That was all."

"Oh, was it? That was only the beginning, if you must know how it began."

"It began," she murmured, "in peace. That was what struck you most in me.
I must have seemed to you at peace, then."

"You did--you did. Weren't you?"

"I must have been. But I've forgotten. It's so long ago. There's peace
here, though. Why didn't we choose this place instead of Scarby?"

"I wish we had. I say--are you never going to forget that?"

"I've forgiven it. I might forget it if I could only understand."

"Understand _what_?"

"How you could be capable of caring for me--like that--and yet--"

"But the two things are so entirely different. It's impossible to explain
to you how different. Heaven forbid that you should understand the
difference."

"I understand enough to know--"

"You understand enough to know nothing. You must simply take my word for
it. Besides, the one thing's an old thing, over and done with."

"Over and done with. But if the two things are so different, how can you
be sure?"

"That sounds awfully clever of you, but I'm hanged if I know what you
mean."

"I mean, how can you tell that it--the old thing--never would come back?"

It _was_ clever of her.