The things we do!

Either he had courage or long
accustomedness, she thought.
"I asked Sally," she half smiled.
"Yes?"
"And I'll ask her again. I don't want--I can't have, a--a room
which belongs to another woman, which has belonged to another.
I've not, all my life, been used to--that sort of place, myself,
you see."
"You are entitled to first place. Madam, wherever you are. I
don't know what you have been." He pointed to her own garments,
which lay across a chair. "You don't know what she has been;" he
indicated these that he held in his hand. "Very well. What could
a mere liar, a coward, do to arrange an understanding between two
women so mysterious? You sprang from the earth, from the sea,
somewhere, I do not know how. You are the first woman for me. Is
it not enough?"
"I told Sally, it might have been a sister, your mother--"
"Dead long ago. Out there." He nodded to the window.
"Which?" she demanded.
He turned to her full now, and put out a hand, touching the
coverlid timidly almost.


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