You understand
how I mean? Not with the same fearful love with which I loved Gerald.
You seemed to me warm and protecting--like a brother, you know--but a
brother one LOVES.
OLIVER. And then you hated me?
ANABEL. Yes, I had to hate you.
OLIVER. And you hated Gerald?
ANABEL. Almost to madness--almost to madness.
OLIVER. Then you went away with that Norwegian. What of him?
ANABEL. What of him? Well, he's dead.
OLIVER. Ah! That's why you came back?
ANABEL. No, no. I came back because my only hope in life was in
coming back. Baard was beautiful--and awful. You know how
glisteningly blond he was. Oliver, have you ever watched the polar
bears? He was cold as iron when it is so cold that it burns you.
Coldness wasn't negative with him. It was positive--and awful
beyond expression--like the aurora borealis.
OLIVER. I wonder you ever got back.
ANABEL. Yes, so do I. I feel as if I'd fallen down a fissure in the
ice. Yet I have come back, haven't I?
OLIVER. God knows! At least, Anabel, we've gone through too much
ever to start the old game again. There'll be no more sticky love
between us.
ANABEL. No, I think there won't, either.
OLIVER. And what of Gerald?
ANABEL. I don't know. What do you think of him?
OLIVER. I can't think any more. I can only blindly go from day to
day, now.
ANABEL. So can I. Do you think I was wrong to come back? Do you
think I wrong Gerald?
OLIVER.
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