“Of course Jean’s got to listen to it all, poor boy; but I needn’t,” she explained.
I didn’t know exactly what to answer and we walked on a little way in silence; then she said: “If you’d carried him off this morning he would have escaped all this fuss.” After a pause she added slowly: “On the whole, it might have been as well.”
“To carry him off?”
“Yes.” She stopped and looked at me. “I wish you would.”
“Would?—Now?”
“Yes, now: as soon as you can. He’s really not strong yet—he’s drawn and nervous.” (“So are you,” I thought.) “And the excitement is greater than you can perhaps imagine—”
I gave her back her look. “Why, I think I can imagine....”
She coloured up through her sallow skin and then laughed away her blush. “Oh, I don’t mean the excitement of seeing me! But his parents, his grandmother, the curé, all the old associations—”
I considered for a moment; then I said: “As a matter of fact, you’re about the only person he hasn’t seen.”
She checked a quick answer on her lips, and for a moment or two we faced each other silently. A sudden sense of intimacy, of complicity almost, came over me. What was it that the girl’s silence was crying out to me?