Her head turned slowly, her face, puzzled, like a boy's face, expressionless because she was trying to think, looked towards his face.

She did not see him, because she was pre-occupied. She did not quite know what she was going to say.

“I don't think I want to be married,” she said, and her naive, troubled, puzzled eyes rested a moment on his, then travelled away, pre-occupied.

“Do you mean never, or not just yet?” he asked.

The knot in his throat grew harder, his face was drawn as if he were being strangled.

“I mean never,” she said, out of some far self which spoke for once beyond her.

His drawn, strangled face