And I was afraid it would upset everything to care."
"Doesn't it?"
"Not caring for you. Of course, I know all about life. I'm young and
I've never looked at a girl. I've always realized that it would be
natural to fall in love--perhaps worse than most men--and that if it
was with a girl like Cosgrave's it would be sheer damnation. I'd have
to fight it down. But loving you is different. It'll make me
stronger. I'll work harder and better because I love you. I'll do
bigger things because of you."
Her head was bowed over her primroses. The sunlight falling between
the trees on her wild brown hair kindled a smouldering colour in its
disorder. He watched her, fascinated and abashed by the knowledge that
she was smiling to herself. And suddenly, roughly like an ashamed boy,
he took a grey and blood-stained rag from his inner pocket and tossed
it into her lap.
"Do you remember that?"
She picked it up gingerly, amusedly.
"Is it a handkerchief, Robert?"
"Don't you remember it?" he repeated with triumph, as though in some
way he had beaten her.
For a moment she was silent. And when she looked at him her eyes were
no longer smiling.
"You kept it like that----?"
"I wouldn't even wash it. I hid it. It's got dirtier and dirtier."
"It must be horribly germy, Robert. We'll wash it together. As
members of the medical profession we couldn't have it on our
conscience----"
They laughed then, freely, out of the depth of their happiness.
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