She was acting not only for herself, and since she had another also to serve and, as I was sure, report to, I should sufficiently hold her.Iknew moreover that I held her as soon as I had begun afresh."I don't mean that anything alters the fact that you lose gracefully.It IS awfully charming, your thus giving yourself up, and yet, justified as I am by it, I can't help regretting a little the excitement I found it this morning to pull a different way from you.Shall I tell you," it suddenly came to me to put to her, "what, for some reason, a man feels aware of?" And then as, guarded, still uneasy, she would commit herself to no permission: "That pulling against you also had its thrill.You defended your cause.Oh,"I quickly added, "I know--who should know better?--that it was bad.Only--what shall I say?--YOU weren't bad, and one had to fight.And then there was what one was fighting for! Well, you're not bad now, either; so that you may ask me, of course, what more I want." I tried to think a moment."It isn't that, thrown back on the comparative dullness of security, I find--as people have been known to--my own cause less good: no, it isn't that."After which I had my illumination."I'll tell you what it is: it's the come-down of ceasing to work with you!"She looked as if she were quite excusable for not following me."To 'work'?"I immediately explained."Even fighting was working, for we struck, you'll remember, sparks, and sparks were what we wanted.There we are then,"I cheerfully went on."Sparks are what we still want, and you've not come to me, I trust, with a mere spent match.I depend upon it that you've another to strike." I showed her without fear all I took for granted."Who, then, HAS?"She was superb in her coldness, but her stare was partly blank."Who then has what?""Why, done it." And as even at this she didn't light I gave her something of a jog."You haven't, with the force of your revulsion, I hope, literally lost our thread." But as, in spite of my thus waiting for her to pick it up she did nothing, I offered myself as fairly stooping to the carpet for it and putting it back in her hand."Done what we spent the morning wondering at.Who then, if it isn't, certainly, Mrs.Server, IS the woman who has made Gilbert Long--well, what you know?"I had needed the moment to take in the special shade of innocence she was by this time prepared to show me.It was an innocence, in particular, in respect to the relation of anyone, in all the vast impropriety of things, to anyone."I'm afraid I know nothing."I really wondered an instant how she could expect help from such extravagance.
"But I thought you just recognised that you do enjoy the sense of your pardonable mistake.You knew something when you knew enough to see you had made it."She faced me as with the frank perception that, of whatever else one might be aware, I abounded in traps, and that this would probably be one of my worst."Oh, I think one generally knows when one has made a mistake.""That's all then I invite you--A mistake, as you properly call it--to allow me to impute to you.I'm not accusing you of having made fifty.You made none whatever, I hold, when you agreed with me with such eagerness about the striking change in him."She affected me as asking herself a little, on this, whether vagueness, the failure of memory, the rejection of nonsense, mightn't still serve her.But she saw the next moment a better way.It all came back to her, but from so very far off."The change, do you mean, in poor Mr.Long?""Of what other change--except, as you may say, your own--have you met me here to speak of? Your own, I needn't remind you, is part and parcel of Long's.""Oh, my own," she presently returned, "is a much simpler matter even than that.My own is the recognition that I just expressed to you and that I can't consent, if you please, to your twisting into the recognition of anything else.It's the recognition that I know nothing of any other change.
I stick, if you'll allow me, to my ignorance.""I'll allow you with joy," I laughed, "if you'll let me stick to it WITH you.Your own change is quite sufficient--it gives us all we need.
