She caught her breath like a hurt child, hot tears welled up; she turned and buried her face against his arm, overwhelmed by her own toleration of herself and the man she was learning so quickly to endure, to fear, and to care for with all the capacity of a heart and mind that had never before submitted one atom of either mind or heart to any man.
What had happened to her? What possessed her? What was bewitching her that from the first instant she had laid eyes on him she seemed to realize she belonged with him--beside him! And now--now a more terrifying knowledge threatened, menaced her--the vague, obscure, formless idea that she belonged to him.
Did it mean she was in love! Was _this_ love? It couldn't be. Love came differently. It was a happiness, a delight, a firm and abiding faith, a sunburst of self-revelation and self-knowledge. It wasn't tears and conscience and bewilderment, and self-reproach--and a haunting fear of self--and a constantly throttled dismay at her own capability for informality--the informality, for example, of her present attitude! And she wept anew at her own astounding degradation.
Love? No, indeed. But a dreadful, unaccountable exposure of her own unaccountable capacity for familiarity! That was it. She was common--common at heart, common by instinct. She had thought she had a will of her own. It seemed she had not. She had nothing!--nothing admirable in her--neither quality nor fineness nor courage nor intellect. It must be so, or how could she be where she was, blotting her tears against the shoulder of a man she had known two days!--biting at her quivering lip in silence there, miserable, bewildered, lonely--lonely beyond belief.
She made the effort, failed, tried again:
"Because I don't mean to make you unhappy."
"But I must have those papers--mustn't I?"
"But you are not going to give them to me, are you?"
"And I am not going to--to tear you to pieces, am I?"
"You know I am going to get them, don't you?"
"It is quite a wonderful way ... if it could occur--happen, come about."
"I don't know--I don't know--I won't think about it any more ... for a while.... It's too important to think about ... in that way ... if it is going to be important at all.... I don't know exactly what I'm saying, Karen. I seem to be thinking out loud.... The idea came ... and then remained.... You won't cry any more, will you?"
