“I must go—yes. I have been here much too long as it is.”
His fingers left her wrist, but he still stood above her motionless, looking straight down at her, yet not as if he watched her, but rather as if he debated something with himself.
“May I ask a question?” he said suddenly.
She felt herself colour. There was something unexpected about this man. She wondered why he embarrassed her so. She tried to smile in answer to his words though his expression was grave to sombreness. “If it isn’t too hard a one,” she said.
“It’s only this,” he said, in his quiet, rather ponderous fashion. “Have you anywhere to go to—if you leave us?”
“Oh, that!” said Frances, and knew she had betrayed herself before she could formulate her reply. “Why, yes,—of course I have.”
“Why ‘of course’?” he said.
She hesitated. “Because—well, every woman has somewhere to go to. I have—a brother.”
“A brother?” he said.
She found herself explaining further as if under compulsion. “Yes, in the North,—a business man. He would take me in.”