“Oh!... No!... No, thank you very much, indeed, but I don’t. I’m going right home. I—No, thank you just the same!”
She was so immeasurably grateful that she could not bear to turn her back on him; she faced him, confused, but smiling, passionately anxious to be nice to one who had been so nice to her.
“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” she had said.
“Yes, it is!” said he. “Very!”
She kept on smiling, but it was a strained and wretched smile, and the colour in her cheeks deepened. A ridiculous, an intolerable situation! She couldn’t keep on in that way, twisted half round in her seat, and smiling and smiling.... She had to turn away.
But a little later she turned back again.
“Isn’t that florist’s window lovely?” she had said.
“Yes, it is!” he answered. “Very!”
He, too, wished to be nice, but couldn’t; and once she had resumed her normal position, although then he thought of a number of things he wished to say, he couldn’t suddenly make remarks to her back. Neither could he touch her on the shoulder again, for he considered that would be vulgar. So after much thought, he finally got up and standing beside her and holding fast to the back of the seat to keep his footing on the lurching deck, he asked her if she could tell him what building that was?
She did so, gladly.