"But I have not told you the tenth part!" said Christine.
"Terrible! Terrible!" murmured the man.
All the heavy sorrow of the world lay on her puckered brow, and floated in her dark glistening [28] eyes. Then she smiled, sadly but with courage.
"I will come to see you again," said the man comfortingly. "Are you here in the afternoons?"
"Every afternoon, naturally."
"Well, I will come—not to-morrow—the day after to-morrow."
Already, long before, interrupting the buttoning of his collar, she had whispered softly, persuasively, clingingly, in the classic manner:
"Thou art content, chéri? Thou wilt return?"
And he had said: "That goes without saying."
But not with quite the same conviction as he now used in speaking definitely of the afternoon of the day after to-morrow. The fact was, he was moved; she too. She had been right not to tell the story earlier, and equally right to tell it before he departed. Some men, most men, hated to hear any tale of real misfortune, at any moment, from a woman, because, of course, it diverted their thoughts.