Having no companions (for Clara was too busy with her house and her children to be considered a companion for the day-time), Lettice sometimes went for solitary expeditions to various "sights" of London, and, as usual in such expeditions, had never once met anybody she knew. She had gone rather early one summer morning to Westminster Abbey, and was walking slowly through the dim cloistered shades, enjoying the coolness and the quietness, when she came full upon Alan Walcott, who seemed to be doing likewise.
They both started: indeed, they both changed color. For the first time they met outside a drawing-room; and the change in their environment seemed to warrant some change in their relation to one another. After the first greeting, and a short significant pause—for what can be more significant than silence between two people who have reached that stage of sensitiveness to each other's moods when every word or movement seems like self-revelation?—Alan spoke.
"You love this place—as I do; I know you love it."
"I have never been here before," said Lettice, letting her eyes stray dreamily over the grey stones at her feet.
"No, or I should have seen you. I am often here. And I see you so seldom——"
"So seldom?" said Lettice in some natural surprise. "Why, I thought we met rather often?"
"Under the world's eye," said Alan, but in so low a voice that she was not sure whether he meant her to hear or not. However, they both smiled; and he went on rather hurriedly, "It is the place of all others where I should expect to meet you. We think so much alike——"
"Do we?" said Lettice doubtfully. "But we differ very much."
"Not in essentials. Don't say that you think so," he said, in a tone that was almost passionately earnest? "I can't tell you how much it is to me to feel that I have a friend who understands—who sympathizes—who would sympathize, I am sure, if she knew all——"
He broke off suddenly, and the emotion in his voice so far touched Lettice that she remained silent, with drooping head and lowered eyes.