"Always: everywhere . . . of that . . . and the children."
"Grace looks after them."
"I know. I get word. She is kind."
"You think of them?"
"Don't, Willy!"
He harked back. "Do you know, whenever I've thought of it . . . the chance of our meeting . . . I've wondered what I should say. Hundreds and hundreds of times I've made up my mind what to say. Why, only just now—I've come from the theatre: I still go to the theatre sometimes; it's a splendid thing to distract your thoughts: takes you out of yourself—Frou—Frou, it was . . . the finest play in the world . . . next to East Lynne. It made me cry, to-night, and the people in the pit stared at me. But one mustn't be ashamed of a little honest emotion, before strangers. And when a thing comes home to a man . . . So you've thought of it too—the chance of our running against one another?"
"Every day and all the day long I've gone fearing it: especially in March and September, when I knew you'd be up in town buying for the season. All the day long I've gone watching the street ahead of me . . . watching in fear of you. . . ."
"But I never guessed it would happen like this." He stared up irritably, as though the lamp were to blame for upsetting his calculations. The woman followed his eyes.
"Yes . . . the lamp," she assented. "Something held my face up to it, just now, when I wanted to hide. It's like as if our souls were naked under it, and there is nothing to say."
"Eh? but there is. I tell you I've thought it out so often!
I've thought it all out, or almost all; and that can't mean nothing."
He cleared his throat. "I've made allowances, too—" he began
magnanimously.