I have kept to this day the heartbreaking little idea of how he seemed to know that and to play with it. “And you can’t say I’ve not been awfully good, can you?”
I laid my hand on his shoulder, for, though I felt how much better it would have been to walk on, I was not yet quite able. “No, I can’t say that, Miles.”
“Except just that one night, you know———!”
“That one night?” I couldn’t look as straight as he.
“Why, when I went down—went out of the house.”
“Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for.”
“You forget?”—he spoke with the sweet extravagance of childish reproach. “Why, it was to show you I could!”
“Oh, yes, you could.”
“And I can again.”
I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping my wits about me. “Certainly. But you won’t.”
“No, not that again. It was nothing.”
“It was nothing,” I said. “But we must go on.”
He resumed our walk with me, passing his hand into my arm. “Then when am I going back?”
