"Really?"
"Really."
"All right. I wish he weren't coming, though."
"Why?" said the girl, preparing to hear her own views set forth.
"Well, you see, the trouble is, old Otway is getting very deaf; he's not really fit for public business any more, and nobody has the courage to tell him. Isn't it appalling the way people cling to things—to the things, too, that we're all forewarned will be taken from us if we stay here long enough?"
She looked at him with a fresh sense of curiosity and wonderment. What a strange new note he put into life! Yet those others laughed and jested with him, and thought him one of themselves.
He took off his jacket again.
"I'll take care of that." She began to fold it. "What's in the pocket?" She put her hand in with a thrill of joy at her audacity, and brought out an old duodecimo of battered calf-skin. "Why, I remember this: it's one of those little volumes that you brought from Paris."
"Did I have it with me—"
"Yes. Have you gone on carrying it about ever since you first came to the Fort?"