“Not at Givre!” he laughed, and shot a half-ironic look at her. “But you haven’t really been at Givre lately—not for months! Don’t you suppose I’ve noticed that, my dear?”
She echoed his laugh to merge it in an undenying sigh. “Poor Givre...”
“Poor empty Givre! With so many rooms full and yet not a soul in it—except of course my grandmother, who is its soul!”
They had reached the gateway of the court and stood looking with a common accord at the long soft-hued facade on which the autumn light was dying. “It looks so made to be happy in——” she murmured.
“Yes—today, today!” He pressed her arm a little. “Oh, you darling—to have given it that look for me!” He paused, and then went on in a lower voice: “Don’t you feel we owe it to the poor old place to do what we can to give it that look? You, too, I mean? Come, let’s make it grin from wing to wing! I’ve such a mad desire to say outrageous things to it—haven’t you? After all, in old times there must have been living people here!”
Loosening her arm from his she continued to gaze up at the house-front, which seemed, in the plaintive decline of light, to send her back the mute appeal of something doomed.
“It is beautiful,” she said.
“A beautiful memory! Quite perfect to take out and turn over when I’m grinding at the law in New York, and you’re——” He broke off and looked at her with a questioning smile. “Come! Tell me. You and I don’t have to say things to talk to each other. When you turn suddenly absentminded and mysterious I always feel like saying: ‘Come back. All is discovered’.”
She returned his smile. “You know as much as I know. I promise you that.”
He wavered, as if for the first time uncertain how far he might go. “I don’t know Darrow as much as you know him,” he presently risked.