"It's as bad as all that."
She got up because she could no longer sit still. His pain was almost
more than she could bear. At the moment she would have given life just
to be allowed to lay her hand soothingly on his shoulder or to stroke
his bowed head. As it was, she could barely give herself the privilege
of taking one step toward him, and even in doing this she was compelled
to keep behind him, lest she should betray herself in the approach.
"Couldn't I--?"
The offer of help was in the tone, in its timid beseeching.
He understood it, and shook his head without looking up.
"No," he said, briefly. "No. No one can."
She remained standing behind him, because she hadn't the strength to go
away. He continued to knock sparks from the log. Repulsed from the
sphere of his suffering, she was thrown back on her own. She wondered
how long she should stand there, how long he would sit, bending like
that, over the dying fire. It was the most intolerable minute of her
life, and yet he didn't know it. Just for the instant she resented
that--that while he could get the relief of openness and speech, she
must be condemned forever to shame and silence. If she could have thrown
herself on her knees beside him and flung her arms about his neck,
crying, "I love you; I love you! Whoever doesn't--_I_ do!--_I_ do!" she
would have felt that life had reached fruition.
The minutes became more unendurable. In sheer self-defense she was
obliged to move, to say something, to break the tensity of the strain.
One step--the single step by which she had dared to draw nearer him,
stretching out yearning hands toward him--one step sufficed to take her
back to the world of conventionalities and commonplaces, where the
heart's aching is taboo.
She must say something, no matter what, and the words that came were:
"Won't you have another cup of tea?"