He felt his own confusion passing. It was so natural to be with her, so right. His voice grew steadier as he said:
"I didn't go about very much. I was afraid—"
She nodded, speaking hastily. "I understand. It was kind of you. And you're—alone?"
He cursed himself for coloring, but he couldn't help it. He had a wife and child in New York! He saw that she wanted to recognize that fact from the first. She wanted to put that boy and his mother between them. Her husband and child stood between them, too. He took that cue in answering.
"Yes; I've run over hurriedly on business. And are you alone, too?"
She glanced toward the empty compartment where her bags were stowed in the overhead racks, and her books and illustrated papers lay on the cushions. "I'm on my way to join my—" It was her turn to color.
He nodded quickly, to show that he understood.
"He's in Biarritz," she hurried on, for the sake of saying something. "I'm to meet him in Paris. I wasn't coming over at all this spring. I wanted to stay with the children at Towers—"
It was a safe subject. "How were the children when you left?"
"Tom was all right; but Chippie has been having the same old trouble with his tonsils. They'll have to be cut again."