“And you return satisfied?” he asked, and knew not why he asked the question, nor why she should look at him so strangely with so sad an expression in the look.
“No,” she replied.
There was a perceptible pause. He pulled his heavy moustache, and his shrewd eyes met hers with a look of understanding and sympathy. He did not know what her purpose had been in coming out, but he felt she had followed no idle whim, nor sought merely health or pleasure from the visit. She had come, as he had come, for a definite purpose, and while he was leaving with his mission accomplished, she returned discouraged with her object unattained.
“I’m sorry for that,” he said... “If there is any way in which I can be of service to you...”
She shook her head.
“I go back as I came,” she said... “It was a venture. But at least I have the consolation of knowing that the attempt has been made. One can’t help one’s failures.” She looked into the grave, distinguished face and smiled. “We are in danger of growing serious,” she said.
“Look here,” he cried quickly, moved by some inexplicable and irresistible impulse, a sense of chivalry perhaps that her evident depression roused in him. “You say you are going home next week. I propose going also. If I can make my arrangements in the time, would it be agreeable to you that I should travel in the same boat?”
“You!” Her voice as well as her face expressed astonishment. “Then you—Have you accomplished your purpose in coming out?” she asked.
A glow of satisfaction overspread his features.
“I have,” he answered, and was conscious of feeling half ashamed to show his joy in the successful issue of his undertaking.