"I'll just run along and pick up my own traps," he explained, "and come back to see you properly looked after."
Though she assured him of her ability to look after herself, he felt at liberty to ridicule her pretensions. "You must have changed a great deal if you can do that," he declared, as he handed down a roll of rugs strapped with a shawl-strap.
"I have changed a great deal."
"I don't see it. I can't see that you've changed at all—essentially."
"Oh, but it's essentially that I am changed. Superficially I may be more or less the same—a little older; but within I'm another woman." She took advantage of the fact that his back was turned to her, as he disentangled the handles of parasols and umbrellas from the network above, to say further: "Perhaps—since we've met in this unexpected way—and talked—possibly a little too frankly—it may be well if I remind you that you'd still be confronted with that fact—that I'm another woman—even if our bridges weren't burned behind us." He decided to let that pass without discussion, and because he said nothing she added: "And I dare say I should find you another man. So don't let us be too sorry, Chip, or think that if we hadn't done what we have done—"
Though he still stood with his back to her, lifting down a heavy bag with a black canvas covering, he could hear a catch in her voice that almost amounted to a sob. Because there was something in himself dangerously near responding to this appeal, he uttered the first words that came to him:
"Hello! Here's a thing I recognize. Didn't you have this—?"
As he stood holding the bag awkwardly before her she inclined her head.