They walked on slowly for some way in silence, but at last she spoke again.
“I believe everyone here is pursuing a dream, just as I pursued a dream walking under the elms at home; they speak to each other and pass on, but they never know each other. Man is always alone. They speak to each other, their eyes meet and sparkle; they smile and take each other by the arm: all in a dream. Here am I walking beside you, both of us are dreaming, unable to awake or to speak to each other.” There was a pause; Grandison did not contradict what she had said, and then she murmured, more to herself than to him: “I am utterly alone, but so is everybody else.”
They continued walking for a long way through deserted streets. Anne was feeling depressed by her train of thought, and Grandison was silent, but when at last they reached the Rue de Beaune she felt as if he had spoken and she had understood.
They shook hands, he looked into her eyes, cleared his throat as if he were going to speak, swallowed something, but then turned away without a word.
“I was wrong,” Anne said, feeling her heart filled once more with hope. “There is patience and nobility and honesty and faithfulness in the world.” As she dropped asleep it seemed to her that these qualities were inseparable from blue eyes and fair hair and fresh, blunt features.
THIRTEEN: PARIS
Next day, when she got up, Anne said to herself that she must see Richard at once to discuss her plans with him. But the beauty of the day tempted her to explore Paris. The morning was spent happily in looking into the windows of the shops in the Rue de Rivoli and in buying herself an umbrella; then she lunched alone, thinking that it would be better to reach the studio in the afternoon. But it was already late before she found Montmartre, and when at last she had mounted the staircase and had rung the bell she was prepared for Richard to be out.
“A day wasted,” she said to herself, but in her heart she felt that it had been well spent, wishing that she could spend another day and then another in wandering about Paris. In the evening she had dinner at her hotel, and then went out once more to see the town by night.
“I can never get lost in Paris so long as I can find the river, for if I follow the river sooner or later I must come to the Pont Royal, and from there it is but a step to my hotel.” She walked along the quays for some little way, but the Place de la Concorde tempted her with its wide expanse, and presently she found herself under the trees of the Champs Elysées. The clouds parted and the moonlight shone through the young leaves, a few dark figures moved in the shadows, and a band of young men passed her humming a foxtrot. Anne stopped for a moment and waved her arms with a sense of freedom and then strode rapidly up the hill.
At the Étoile she turned to the left down an avenue, which she guessed would bring her to the river, and when she saw the moonlight shining over the water she cried aloud: “I am free. I can do what I like; I can live how I like. I may never see Richard or his friend or anyone I have ever met, again. I have no friends in the world. Nobody can interfere now with my happy life!” And suddenly, as she gazed over the water, Anne remembered how she had wept in her bedroom on the morning when the ploughmen had come. “No need for tears now that the accursed chain is broken. Who would guess, meeting me here, that I was the vicar’s daughter with no hope of escaping from the parish? I am still alone, absolutely alone, but I care nothing for that because I am free. I am free!” she repeated in a loud voice which startled her, but there was no one near her, and she set off along the bank of the river. “I shall never go back!” she said, drawing herself up proudly, then, looking at the water, she wished that she could bathe, and her gaiety and irresponsibility were such that she was almost on the point of undressing beneath a lamp-post and plunging in. She recollected in time that she would be saved by a French policeman, and walked on laughing as she pictured to herself the explanations that she would offer next morning in the police-court in her broken French.