“Don’t let’s talk of it now,” said she. “Wait until we are in the woods.”
Soon after we passed the entrance gates we descended and rambled away over the not too even ground, along the indistinct paths under the fascinating little trees. It was a gorgeous, perfumed May day. You know the Bois—how lovely it is, how artfully it mingles the wild and the civilized, suggesting nature as a laughing nymph with tresses half bound, half free, with graceful young form half clad, half nude. We rambled on and on, and after half an hour seated ourselves where there were leaves and the slim graceful trunks on every side and the sound of falling water like the musical voice of the sunbeams.
Mary drew a long sigh. “I feel better,” she said.
I looked at her. “You are better. You have shaken it off.”
She met my gaze. “This is the last time,” she said. She looked away, repeated softly, thoughtfully, “the last time.”
“The last time?”
“We are not going to see each other any more. It is being misunderstood.”
I glanced quickly at her, and I knew she had read the paragraph. “That miserable scandal sheet!” said I. “No one sees it—and if they did why should we notice anything so ridiculous?”
She did not answer immediately. After a while she said: “Perhaps I ought not to say it, but—Hartley is sensitive. A copy of the paper got to him.”
“One to me. One to you. One to him.”