It must have been
hard for him to hear without resentment that she was
ready to help him to make a home for that reality. He
was fast growing instructed in women, although by a
post-graduate course.
Advena looked up. "Possibly," she said, calmly, and their
agitation lay still between them. He was silently angry;
the thing that stirred without their leave had been sweet.
"No," said Advena, "I can't go, I suppose. I'm sorry. I
should have liked so much to be of use." She looked up
at him appealingly, and sudden tears came and stood in
her eyes, and would perhaps have undone his hurt but that
he was staring into the fire.
"How can you be of use," he said, almost irritably, "in
such ways as those? They are not important, and I am not
sure that for us they are legitimate. If you were about
to be--married"--he seemed to plunge at the word--"I
should not wish either to hasten you or to house you. I
should turn my back on it all. You should have nothing
from me," he went on, with a forced smile, "but my
blessing, delivered over my shoulder."
"I am sure they are not important," she said
humbly--privately all unwilling to give up her martyrdom,
"but surely they are legitimate. I would like to help
you in every little way I can. Don't you like me in your
life? You have said that I may stay.
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