"There really is not much more to me than that," she said in a low
voice. "You sum me up--a gay source of amusement: nothing more."
"Athalie, you know you are more vital than that to me."
"No, I don't know it."
"You do! You know it in your own heart. You know that it is a
straight, clean, ardent friendship that inspires me and--" she looked
up, serious, and very quiet.
--"You know," he continued impulsively, "that it is not only your
beauty, your loveliness and grace and that inexplicable charm you seem
to radiate, that brings me to seek you every time that I have a moment
to do so.
"Why, if it were that alone, it would all have been merely a matter of
sentiment. Have I ever been sentimental with you?"
"No."
"Have I ever made love to you?"
She did not reply. Her eyes were fixed on her glass.
"Have I, Athalie?" he repeated.
"No, Clive," she said gently.
"Well then; is there not on my part a very deep, solidly founded, and
vital friendship for you? Is there not a--"
"Don't let's talk about it," she interrupted in a low voice. "You
always make me very happy; you say I please you--interest and amuse
you. That is enough--more than enough--more than I ever hoped or
asked--"
"I said you make me happy;--happier than I have ever been," he
explained with emphasis. "Do you suppose for a moment that your regard
for me is warmer, deeper, more enduring, than is mine for you? Do you,
Athalie?"
She lifted her eyes to his. But she had nothing more to say on the
subject.
However, he began to insist,--a little impatiently,--on a direct
answer. And finally she said: "Clive, you came into a rather empty life when you came into mine.
Judge how completely you have filled it.... And what it would be if
you went out of it. Your own life has always been full. If I should
disappear from it--" she ceased.
The quiet, accentless, almost listless dignity of the words surprised
and impressed him for a moment; then the reaction came in a faint glow
through every vein and a sudden impulse to respond to her with an
assurance of devotion a little out of key with the somewhat stately
and reserved measure of their duet called friendship.
"You also fill my life," he said. "You give me what I never had--an
intimacy and an understanding that satisfies. Had I my way I would be
with you all the time. No other woman interests me as you do. There
is no other woman."