“Verlaine.”
“French?”
He nodded, and she pouted in delicious disapproval of his learned choice.
“Fancy reading French unless you’ve got to.”
“But I enjoy these poems,” Michael declared. “As a matter of fact you’re just like them. At least you were when I saw you first in the distance. Now you’re more real somehow.”
Her gaze had wandered during his comparison and Michael, a little hurt by her inattention, asked if she were expecting somebody.
“Oh, no. I just came out for a walk. I get a headache if I stay in all the afternoon. Now I must go on. Good-bye.”
She scattered with a light kick the little heap of leaves that during their conversation she had been amassing, and with a half-mocking wave of her muff prepared to leave him.
“I say, don’t tear off,” Michael begged. “Where do you live?”
“Oh, a long way from here,” she said.