"Poor lass!" he said in his abrupt way, suddenly gripped by this idea of her grimacing under sorrow. He had given her such a lot of it—by George! He grasped her hand with a quick gesture, and frown of pain, drawing it through his arm.
"It's to be a clean slate, my girl," he said, looking down at her.
He felt the slight fingers pinch into his arm.
"Yes," she said. "Yes, Cecil." But she looked in front of her face gave him another pang. He was glad that gether, as though the dazzle of the white road and clouds and walls along the way, hurt her eyes.
Chesney fought off a great fog of depression that seemed suddenly to settle down on him.
"'Cheerly! Cheerly!'" he cried, putting a bluff note into his voice that he was far from feeling. "What's it the old chap in The Tempest says?—'Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!' That's the 'barbaric yawp' for us, Sophy—eh? Don't you feel it so?"
"Yes.... I do.... I do, Cecil," she responded eagerly. Her grey eyes looked up at him now. The bright bravery of her face gave him another pang. He was glad that their next step brought them to the little Hotel Ghiffa. Sophy ran up to see how Bobby was faring, in the rooms that she had taken till the hour for leaving. She found him clamouring to go down and "p'ay ball wiv mens" in the garden. A game of Boccie was going on there. She sent him down with Rosa to look on. Then she went out again to find Cecil. He met her at the door of the second bedroom. When he saw her, he stepped back into the room and signed her to come. He reached out and shut the door behind her. His face looked strange, all pale under its heavy coat of tan.
"Sophy," he said, "don't think me a sentimental ass—but you've never told me ... in so many words that ... well ... that you forgive me?"
He was gazing at her hungrily, with a look half ashamed, half determined. She went straight to him, and put her arms around him. It was queer how much he appealed to her as Bobby did.
"Oh, I'm so sorry that I've let you feel the need of words!" she said. "But if you want them I'll say them over and over——"