Rosalind put some kindling and coal in the stove to resurrect the fire from earlier. While it was catching, she took an onion and started chopping it. "Wash and cut the rest of the vegetables for me, will you? Cubes for beef stew." He looked in the bag to find carrots and potatoes, and set to rinsing and chopping them. Having something straightforward to do was a considerable relief.
Rosalind started talking in a clear, precise voice, as if she was recording notes on a voxophone.
"I am sorry to have made you wait so long, but I wanted to make sure that my thoughts were clear before I came back and spoke to you about them. This is not a matter on which I would wish to go back on my word or make any unwise promises or assumptions. I hope that the afternoon was not too hard to endure, and I appreciate you not pursuing me or making a fuss trying to track me down."
Still looking down, she continued.
"I want to say that I love you too, and I want to be with you. We'll have to find some way to make this work in public, but I'm sure that we're both clever enough to do so."
She whisked the contents of her chopping board into the heated fry pan and the delicious smell of onions frying in butter filled the room.
"I've had feelings for you since the beginning too, but I was too concerned with keeping you alive to talk to you about them. I've also been unsure if this level of intimacy would cause more problems for you, and I do not wish to cause you more suffering. My desire to meet you has already brought you through hell, and I will regret what I have put you through to my grave. If this has any ill effect on you, we will cease immediately."
She indicated that Robert should place the carrots and potatoes into the frying pan, then added broth. She started browning some stew beef in another pan.
"Furthermore…I know we've talked some about how I haven't had an easy path, but one of the things that I accepted many years ago is that I would never marry, or have any relationship. I have had men ask for my hand since I came to Columbia and Comstock has offered on several occasions to make a match for me, but I have never been able to trust that a man would permit me to continue my work. Furthermore, it has not been made clear to me that by the laws of Columbia my work and patents would remain my own, or, by custom, my person, and I do not intend that to happen."
She mixed the stew beef into the broth and vegetables and moved the pan away from the main heat source so it could simmer. Robert added some thyme and a bit of sage.
"But I am not without feelings. Dreams. Desires. I have been very lonely, and it has been hard. As typical as it might sound for a woman of science, I threw myself into my work. It seemed like the only rational choice, until I could find a man who would not be running desperately to catch up to me in an intellectual sense, or who would not strip my work away from me and force me to bear his children."
"In all honesty, I've come to loathe myself for even wanting these things, holding nothing but the…barest contempt for my base desires, even that of simple companionship. Your presence, though…you have changed everything for me."
They sat at the table in a long silence while the stew simmered. She took his large hands in her small ones, and continued in a voice much gentler than usual.
"You are me, are you not? You would never take my work away from me. I would never take my work away from me. We cannot marry, as we are, as far as the citizens are concerned, and in a strict genetic sense, kin. But as long as we can avoid detection…and I believe that we are both sterile from exposure to the machine…as long as no one knows, then yes, I will consent. To this. To you. I think the stew is done."
The stew was done. Robert fetched bowls and ladled it out, and cut two slices of the crusty bread from Rosalind's shopping. They sat together, at the kitchen table, both hungry.
They finished their meals, washed the dishes, and banked the fire, setting the leftovers in the icebox for later. He turned and looked at her. There was no longer anything else to do or look at, and she met his gaze, flushing red under her freckles.
"Shall we, then? Upstairs?" she said, her voice wavering. Robert nodded and took her hand, and she led him up.