, a word at a time; as though they hurt.

"Are you happy? With me--like this?" she countered.

It was a question he could not answer categorically and she did not give
him time for anything else. "What's the matter with us, Roddy?" she
demanded. "We ought to be happy. We meant to be. We said that we'd been
through a lot, and that probably there was a lot mere to go through--in
the way of working things out, at least--and that we'd take a month just
for nothing but to be happy in--just for pure joy." Her voice broke in a
sob over that. "And here we are--like this!"

"It hasn't all been like this," he said. "There have been hours, a day
or two, that I'd go through the whole thing for, again, if necessary."

She nodded assent to that. "But the rest of the time!" she cried. "Why
can't we be--comfortable together? Why ... Roddy, why can't you be
natural with me? Like your old self. Why don't you roar at me any more?
And swear when you run into things? I've never seen you formal before
--not with anybody. Not even with strangers. And now you're formal with
me."

The rueful grin with which he acknowledged the truth of this indictment
was more like him, and it cheered her immensely. She answered it with
one of her own, dried her eyes and asked again, more collectedly:

"Well, can you tell me why?"

"Why, it seemed to me," he said, "that it was you who were different.
And you have changed, of course, down inside, more than I have. You've
been through things in the last year and a half; found out things that I
know nothing about, except as I have read about them in books. I've
never had to ask a stranger for a job. I've never been--brought to bay,
the way you were in that damned town of Centropolis (I'd like to burn
it). And other things--horrible things, have--have come so near you,
that if it hadn't been for that--white flame of yours, they'd have
marked you. When I think of those things I feel like a schoolboy beside
you. You've no idea how--how innocent a man can be, Rose. That's not the
tradition, but it's true. So, when I remember how things used to be
between us, how I used to be the one who knew things, and how I preached
and spouted, I get to feeling that the man you remember must look to you
now, like--well, like a schoolboy. Showing off."

She stared at him incredulously. "But that's downright morbid," she
said. "You don't have to go--into the gutter to learn things. And what
you say about innocence ... A man c