very deep affection. And I think you would
forgive us, I know you would forgive us in the end. But I understand it
isn't only that--"

Suddenly he thought of Vere, of that perhaps dawning folly, so utterly
dead now, so utterly dead that he could no longer tell whether it had
ever even sluggishly stirred with life. He thought of Vere, and of
the poems, and of the secret of Peppina's revelation. And he wondered
whether the record he seemed to read in the silence had been a true
record, or whether his imagination and his intellect of a psychologist,
alert even in this hour of intense emotion, had been deceiving him.
Hermione had seemed to be speaking to him. But had he really been
only impersonating her? Had it been really himself that had spoken to
himself? As this question arose in his mind he longed to make
Hermione speak. Then he could be sure of all. He must clear away all
misconception. Yet, even now, how could he speak of that episode with
Vere?

"You say you have always wanted gold, and that you have never been given
gold--"

"Yes."

He saw the dark figure near him lift its head. And he felt that Hermione
had come out of the darkness with the intention of speaking the truth of
what she felt. If she could not have spoken she would have stayed in the
inner chamber, or she would have escaped altogether from the palace when
he moved from the doorway. He was sure that only if she spoke would she
change. In her silence there was damnation for them both. But she meant
to speak.

"I have been a fool. I see that now. But I think I have been suspecting
it for some time--nearly all this summer."

He could hear by the sound of her voice that while she was speaking she
was thinking deeply. Like him, she was in search of absolute truth.

"It is only this summer that I have begun to see why people--you--have
often smiled at my enthusiasms. No wonder you smiled! No wonder you
laughed at me secretly!"

Her voice was hard and bitter.

"I never laughed at you, never--either secretly or openly!" he said,
with a heat almost of anger.

"Oh yes, you did, as a person who can see clearly might laugh at a
short-sighted person tumbling over all the little obstacles on a road.
I was always tumbling over things--always--and you must always have
been laughing. I have been a fool. Instead of growing up, my heart has
remained a child--till now. That's what it is. Children who have been
kindly treated think the world is all kindness.