"It pains me. I do not like to fancy that any one can think such things of me, much less...." she stopped short and looked down, slowly opening and shutting her fan.
"Much less?"
Laura hesitated for some seconds, as though choosing her words with more than ordinary care.
"Much less one whom it might pain to think them," she said at last.
The smile that had been on Arden's face faded away in the silence that followed, and his lips moved a little as though he felt some kind of emotion, while his large thin hands closed tightly upon his withered knee.
"Have I said too much?" she asked, suddenly breaking the long pause.
"Or not quite enough, perhaps," he answered in a low voice.
Again they were both silent, and they both wondered inwardly that in less than an hour's acquaintance they should have reached something like a crisis. At last Laura rose slowly and deliberately, intending to give her companion time to get to his feet.
"Will you give me your arm?" she said when he stood beside her. "I want to introduce you to my mother."
Arden bent his head and held up his right arm for her hand. He was considerably shorter than she. Then they walked away together, she erect and easy in her girlish gait, he weak-kneed and awkward, seeming to unjoint half his body at every painful step, helping himself along at her side with the stick he held in his free hand—a strangely assorted couple, the world said, as they went by.