. . but all the more
exquisite. . . ."
She felt the hand under hers slip away, recover itself, and seek her
own, which had flashed out of reach in the same instant--felt the
start that swept him round on her as if he had been caught and
turned about by the shoulders.
"You--_you_--?" he stammered, in a strange voice full of fear and
tenderness; but she held fast, so centred in her inexorable resolve
that she was hardly conscious of the effect her words might be
producing.
"Don't you see," she hurried on, "don't you _feel_ how much safer it
is--yes, I'm willing to put it so!--how much safer to leave
everything undisturbed . . . just as . . . as it has grown of itself
. . . without trying to say: 'It's this or that' . . . ? It's what
we each choose to call it to ourselves, after all, isn't it? Don't
let us try to find a name that . . . that we should both agree upon
. . . we probably shouldn't succeed." She laughed abruptly. "And
ghosts vanish when one names them!" she ended with a break in her
voice.
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