Another pause, the kind that changes the shape of a conversation.
"As did I," he said, and his voice was different in it—quieter, less governed, the voice of a man who has stopped choosing his words and let a true one through. "Rather too easy, in fact, for a pretense."
I looked away at that point. Some things do not want a witness, even a kind one.
He came to me in August, unannounced, and stood in my study turning his hat in his hands like a man before a tribunal.
"You have known her longest," he said at last. "I am told I am difficult. Cold. I hear it often enough that it is likely true. I would rather remain alone all my life than have her accept me out of gratitude, or want, or any reason but the one." The hat went around once more. "Tell me honestly: could a woman like that come to care for a man like me?"
I have given much counsel in that study. I have rarely enjoyed any of it so much.