THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
shown, and he saw his interlocutress, on her side, understand the question in it, which he moreover then uttered. "Shall you be alone?" It was, as an immediate instinctive parley with the image of his condition that now flourished in her, almost hypocritical. It sounded as if he wished to come and overflow to her, yet this was exactly what he didn't. The need to overflow had suddenly—since the night before—dried up in him, and he had never been conscious of a deeper reserve.
But she had meanwhile largely responded. "Completely alone. I should otherwise never have dreamed; feeling, dear friend, but too much!" What she felt, failing on her lips, came out for him in the offered hand with which, the next moment, she had condolingly pressed his own. "Dear friend, dear friend!"—she was deeply "with" him, and she wished to be still more so: which was what made her immediately continue. "Or wouldn't you, this evening, for the sad Christmas it makes us, dine with me tête-à-tête?"
It put the thing off, the question of a talk with her—making the difference, to his relief, of several hours; but it also rather mystified him. This, however, didn't diminish his need of caution. "Shall you mind if I don't tell you at once?"
"Not in the least—leave it open: it shall be as you may feel, and you needn't even send me word. I only will mention that to-day, of all days, I shall otherwise sit there alone."
388
