“Silly,” said Ann. “Just a lost boy, that’s what you are. Lucky for you it was me and not the police found you. They’d have sent you back where you came from.” She saw that it was useless to joke with René and soon dropped her bantering tone. She took him for a walk round the houses, and was delighted when he remembered that he must have a clean collar and a toothbrush; a return to grace, or sense.
“Oh! I’d be sorry now if it wasn’t true, and you went back.”
“I shan’t go back.”
Her question, the necessity of responding to her spontaneity, brought back in a sudden flood his will, and he had a quick pleasure in feeling the air upon his face and seeing the evening color of the streets.
“No. I shan’t go back. People can’t go back. But my father went back.”
“Why did you say that?”
“What did I say?”
“‘But my father went back.’”
“Did I? I didn’t know I said that. I didn’t know I even thought of him.”