I believe that we said nothing for a long time then, and gazed at each other without finding it in the least embarrassing or oppressing.
We both felt as though the responsibility of our situation did not rest with us, but with One who probably knew best in everything and in whose keeping we were safe.
At last she got up, saying: "You surely want your room put to rights again. It has not been used since you were here last and I saved your bed linen."
"Did you know then that I would come back?"
"I thought you would."
"Did you hope so?"
"Yes!" she said artlessly.
This was so totally different from what other women I had known would have replied, that it made me feel confused. I had no conception or experience of woman's love that can dispense with playful dissembling, and so thought that I was mistaken after all. I began to consider that I was already quite an old man and she apparently about twenty years younger. Perhaps I resembled some one she had formerly known; perhaps she took me for her unknown father or sought in me a substitute for her unengaging supporter. I prepared myself for all this, firmly determined not to disappoint her.
"Will you do me the favor of being my guide about the city this afternoon? It looks like such a pretty and attractive little town to me."
"I?" she asked with evident pleasure. "I'll be very glad to. But first you must eat something."