"Well, no." She was wonderfully honest with herself. "Why is it? It wasn't my fault."
"Probably nobody's fault," I said. "Just the grim old law of nature. You don't blame the sun for rising. You can't blame a man for....."
"Oh, don't you begin it," she interrupted. "I give you fair warning."
We sat glum on opposite seats until the train reached Paris.
"Oh, bother!" she said, as we got out. "What's the use of moping? Let's be friends. Just good friends."
She held out her hand so enticingly I could not help grasping it.
"Honest Injun," she said. "No cheating? Cross your heart to die."
So I was committed to a platonic relation which even at the first I knew to be unstable.
The next morning, as though to prove the firmer basis of our friendship, she told me that she was expecting two comrades, a Mr. and Mrs. Long, who were then in Germany, to arrive in Paris in a few days. They were planning a tramp through Normandy—to take in the cathedrals. Would I join them? We spent the afternoon over a road map of North-western France, plotting an itinerary.
And then, two days before we expected to start, came a telegram from the Longs. They were called home suddenly, were sailing direct from Hamburg.