“One, I hope,” she answered quietly. Then she rose to her feet. “What are you doing out here at this hour?” she added.
“Walking, to tire myself,” he answered. “Will you come?”
For her only answer, she dropped into step at his side, and they turned down the steep slope leading into Saint Sauveur, crossed Saint Roch and the Dorchester Bridge and came out on the open road to Beauport.
Never a garrulous companion, St. Jacques was more silent than ever, that morning, and Nancy let him have his way. Moreover, at times she was conscious of something restful in the long pauses which came in her talk with St. Jacques. When he chose, the young Frenchman spoke easily and well. Apparently, however, he saw no need of talking, unless he had something to say. In their broken talk and their long silences, Nancy had gained a better understanding of St. Jacques, a more perfect sympathy with his point of view and his mood than she had gained of Brock in all their hours of chattering intercourse.
For a long mile, they walked on without speaking. Shoulder to shoulder, they had gone tramping along the narrow plank walk with the sure rhythm of perfectly adapted step.
“How well we walk together!” Nancy said, suddenly breaking the silence.
“Yes,” St. Jacques assented briefly. “I have always noticed it.”
Some men would have used her random words as the theme for a sentimental speech. To St. Jacques, they were too obvious; emotion should not be wasted upon anything so matter of fact. Long since, Nancy had become accustomed to that phase of his mind. It gave a certain restfulness to their intercourse to know that St. Jacques would never read unintended meanings into her simplest utterances. At first, she had supposed him too stolid, too earnestly intent upon his own ends to waste sentiment upon herself. Lately, she had begun to doubt; and she confessed to herself that the doubt was sweet.
“You said you were cross, to-day?” St. Jacques broke the silence, this time.
“Yes, detestably.”