Oh, don't you see it is?
Don't you feel it--feel what it is doing to us?
Don't you understand how it is driving me back into myself?
Whom am I to go to if not to you?
What am I to do if your affection turns into this--this different attitude toward me?
You were so perfectly sweet and reasonable--so good, so patient; and now--and now I am losing confidence in you--in myself--in our friendship.
I'm no longer frank with you; I'm afraid at times--afraid and self-conscious--conscious of you, too--afraid of what seemed once the most natural of intimacies.

I--I loved you so dearly--so fearlessly--" Tears blinded her; she bent her head, and they fell on the soft delicate stuff of her gown, flashing downward in the sunlight.
"Dear," he said gently, "nothing is altered between us.

I love you in that way, too." "D-do you--really ?" she stammered, shrinking away from him.
"Truly.

Nothing is altered; nothing of the bond between us is weakened.
On the contrary, it is strengthened.

You cannot understand that now.