“Do you? How?” Again that peremptory, challenging look met hers.
But she answered him with absolute simplicity. On this point at least she felt no qualms. “On account of your mother,” she said. “I guessed that.”
His face changed, softening magically. “Yes, my mother,” he said. “But what made you guess it?”
“It just came to me,” she said. “I knew you must be fond of someone.”
He looked away from her to a gap of blue distance in front of them, and for a few seconds there was silence between them. Then: “Thank you for saying that,” he said, “and for thinking it. You have an extraordinary insight. Do you read everyone’s motives in this way? Or is it only mine?”
There was a hint of melancholy in the question, as though he invited ridicule to cover an unacknowledged pathos. But Frances did not answer it, for she had no answer ready. She felt as if in his silence he had lifted the veil and given her a glimpse of his lonely soul. She saw him as it were surrounded by a great solitude which she could not cross. And so she turned away.
“I am not a great reader of character,” she said. “Only I know that there is only one way of turning our stones into bread. And if we don’t find it, we starve.”
“Yes, starve!” He repeated the word with his eyes still upon the blue distance. “I’m used to starving,” he said slowly. “It’s a sort of chronic state with me.”
The sound of the reaping-machine came whirring through the sunlit silence, and the man pulled himself together with a gesture of impatience. “Well, I suppose we must go. You have seen the Stones, and I hope you are satisfied.”
“I am glad you brought me,” she said. “But I don’t think I shall come again.”