"
Then pity filled Dick. Even thus had Maisie spoken when she could not hit the
breakwater, half an hour before she had kissed him. And that had happened
yesterday.
"Never mind," he said. "I'll tell you something, if you'll believe it." The
words were shaping themselves of their own accord. "The whole thing, lock,
stock, and barrel, isn't worth one big yellow sea-poppy below Fort Keeling."
Maisie flushed a little. "It's all very well for you to talk, but you've had
the success and I haven't."
"Let me talk, then. I know you'll understand. Maisie, dear, it sounds a bit
absurd, but those ten years never existed, and I've come back again. It really
is just the same. Can't you see? You're alone now and I'm alone. What's the use
of worrying? Come to me instead, darling."
Maisie poked the gravel with her parasol. They were sitting on a bench.
"I understand," she said slowly. "But I've got my work to do, and I must do
it."
"Do it with me, then, dear. I won't interrupt."
"No, I couldn't. It's my work,--mine,--mine,--mine! I've been alone all my life
in myself, and I'm not going to belong to anybody except myself. I remember
things as well as you do, but that doesn't count. We were babies then, and we
didn't know what was before us.
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