Sweet of him, and friendly! But it meant no more than mere friendliness.
I fought down a sigh.
"Good-bye," I said again.
He did not move from the gate. He just went on with the conversation.
"So you came here; left London. Sometimes one hates leaving—places, I mean, of course."
I said rather bitterly, "Yes—places."
"Not people?" he took up, with a very quick tilt of his head.
What could one say? I agreed.
"Oh, people are hard enough to leave sometimes."
"Are they?" he said, looking down at me. I could not meet his friendly eyes. I moved to go on.