“Shall we go back?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered absent-mindedly.
So they retraced their steps over the same road, which yet seemed to him a new road. On the return he found himself reciprocating her confidence by telling something of his own life. It seemed an uninteresting enough tale and yet he found her listening with apparent eagerness. In fact before he knew it she had led him a great deal further than he had intended to go. He had proposed covering only the blunt facts of his life such as their present relations gave her a right to know, but before he realized it he had gone into a great many more intimate details.
It was not until they were within sight of the house, that he awoke to what her eyes had enticed from him. Then he drew himself up short, a bit startled by the phenomenon. He was usually reticent about himself.
“I beg your pardon,” he apologized, “I must have bored you.”
“You haven’t,” she answered frankly.
“At any rate,” he said, “I had no idea of going into those matters.”
She smiled again and this time he saw that her mouth was after all not a child’s mouth.
Aunt Philomela met them at the door, as though she had been some time waiting for them. She fixed her eyes upon the girl as though to discover at a glance what this morning contained. Then she turned to Barnes, raising her scant eyebrows a trifle.
“You gave your bag to the marketman to bring back?” she asked blandly.