not asking of love that
complete sharing, that deep understanding which had been his dream
before he talked to Amy. He supposed things would go on about the
same--just that that one thing wouldn't be, was the thought with which
he went to sleep, making his first compromise with his ideal for their
love. Just as he was falling asleep there came before him, half of
dreams, Ruth's face as it had been when she seemed to be brooding over
the things life brought one. It was as if pain had endowed her with
understanding. Did it take pain to do it?

He had an early morning call to make and left home without really
talking to Amy. When he woke in the morning, yearning to be back in the
new joy of her love, he was going to tell her that he was sorry he had
hurt her, sorry there was this thing they looked at differently, but
that he loved her with his whole heart and that they were going to be
happy just the same, and then maybe some time they'd "get together" on
this. It was a thing he would not have said he would do, but there are
many things one will do to get from the shadow back into that necessary
sunlight of love.

However, there was not opportunity then for doing it; he had to hurry to
the hospital and Amy gave him no chance for such a moment with her. She
had the manner of keeping up an appearance of going on as if nothing had
happened; as if that thing were left behind--frosted over. She kissed
him good-by, but even in that there seemed an immense reservation. It
made him unhappy, worried him. He told himself that he would have to
talk to Amy, that it wouldn't do to leave the thing that way.

It had been so easy to talk to Ruth; it seemed that one could talk to
her about anything, that there was no danger of saying a thing and
having it bound back from a wall of opinions and prejudices that kept
him from her. There was something resting, relaxing, in the way one
could be one's self with Ruth, the way she seemed to like one for just
what one was. He had always felt more at ease with her than with anyone
else, but now he more than ever had the feeling that her mind was
loosened from the things that held the minds of most of the women he
knew. It was a great thing not to have those holdbacks in talking with a
friend, to be freed of that fear of blundering into a thing that would
be misunderstood. He did not face the fact that that was just the way it
was with Amy, that there was constantly the fear of saying something
t