His purpose in life! He was the sort of man who took more joy in finding and working that out than in loving any woman. True, she no longer concurred in Cornelia's view that Robert was a fanatic. No. He just escaped fanaticism by the skin of his teeth. This view explained both his long silence and his sudden reappearance. That is, she knew quite well that he had borne her no grudge on account of the past, had indulged in no theatrical repudiation of her friendship because of her liaison with Claude. He had simply found it profitless to pursue a friendship with a woman in her situation. That would be enough to commit him to silence.
Nor did she take too seriously his assertion that he had made a special trip to Paris to see her. Why shouldn't he pay her or Madame Paulette a visit if the ordinary course of his business brought him almost to their doorstep? After all, a representative of labor interests could hardly come to Europe without visiting Paris. Paris, where a lurid, underground drama of industrial insurrection, half smothered by gold dust, was going on!
Was there any sensible reason why Robert shouldn't pick up the thread of an old friendship, if it was all in the day's work? It might even be useful to a labor man to get in touch with people who knew the ropes of the French capital. Anyhow, Robert would be the last person in the world to abstain from such a course if it promised to advance his principles.
His hateful principles! The worst of it was, she was beginning to have sympathy for his conviction that the drudgery which served a purpose you believed in might be a real pleasure, compared with which the pleasure that served no purpose worth believing in would be an intolerable pain.
Well, all these speculations were as nothing against the fact of the moment. The fact of the moment was that the swaying of the bus crushed Robert's arm against hers in an impact that was poignantly delightful. Nor was this all. Robert, his imperious principles notwithstanding, acted in every respect as if he liked having his arm against her; no as if he would like to have his arm around her. Robert Lloyd amorous? She gave him a sidelong glance. Her senses provided her with abundant evidence that her surmise was correct. But this was a world of sensory illusions as she had learned to her cost; and she reminded herself sharply that she had more than one decisive reason for trusting neither to his feelings nor to her own.
IV
"You're not doing your duty," she said to him. "We've just passed the church of St. Germain-des-Pres. Quick look back. Even darkness can't subdue those imposing walls. Doesn't it look solid and impregnable? Just like my mother and like your convictions. It's a structure that commands your faith, though you have it not. You'll miss the silhouette of St. Sulpice, too, if you don't look out."
"Janet, I didn't come to Paris to look at churches. I came to look at you."
"Well, you came, you saw, and—you conquered."
"I saw more than you think," he went on, smiling at her flippancy. "As I said before, you've changed physically. But the physical change is of no importance."