I want to draw all those wasted months into
today--to make them a part of it."
"But they are, to me. You reach back and take everything--
back to the first days of all."
She frowned a little, as if struggling with an inarticulate
perplexity. "It's curious how, in those first days, too,
something that I didn't understand came between us."
"Oh, in those days we neither of us understood, did we? It's
part of what's called the bliss of being young."
"Yes, I thought that, too: thought it, I mean, in looking
back. But it couldn't, even then, have been as true of you
as of me; and now----"
"Now," he said, "the only thing that matters is that we're
sitting here together."
He dismissed the rest with a lightness that might have
seemed conclusive evidence of her power over him. But she
took no pride in such triumphs. It seemed to her that she
wanted his allegiance and his adoration not so much for
herself as for their mutual love, and that in treating
lightly any past phase of their relation he took something
from its present beauty. The colour rose to her face.
"Between you and me everything matters."
"Of course!" She felt the unperceiving sweetness of his
smile. "That's why," he went on, "'everything,' for me, is
here and now: on this bench, between you and me."
She caught at the phrase. "That's what I meant: it's here
and now; we can't get away from it.
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