"Oh," she said, "I see what you mean;
and I don't wonder. I am so literal--I have so little imagination."
"Don't talk of it as if it were money or fabric--something you could add
up or measure," Hilda cried remorselessly. "You have none!"
As if something slipped from her Alicia threw out locked hands. "At
least I had enough to know you when you came!" she cried. "I felt you,
too, and it's not my fault if there isn't enough of me to--to respond
properly. And I can't give you up. You seem to be the one valuable thing
that I can have--the only permanent fact that is left."
Hilda had a rebound of immense discomfort. "Who said anything about
giving up?" she interrupted.
"Why, you did! But I'm quite willing to believe you didn't mean it, if
you say so." She turned the appeal of her face and saw a sudden pitiful
consideration in Hilda's, and, as if it called them forth, two tears
sprang to her eyes and fell, as she lowered her delicate head, upon her
lap.
"Dear thing! I didn't indeed. If I meant anything it was that I'm
overstrung. I've been horribly harried lately." She possessed herself of
one of Alicia's hands and stroked it. Alicia kept her head bent for a
moment and then let it fall, in sudden abandonment, upon the other
woman's shoulder.
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