Sometimes she would begin of her own accord to talk of Linda:
“She has such eyes. She sees everything. You feel she knows every stitch of clothing you have on. And the things she wears herself— Well! But she’s very pleasant and she’s got a pretty smile. Girls were very different in my day.”
“How were they different?” René would ask.
“I don’t know. Different. I can’t say. We were more patient. There were some things we didn’t talk of. But, of course, she’s not English. That would account for a good deal. If you weren’t so set on her I should say she was making a fool of herself. Girls often do, you know, with a sort of man they’ve not been used to. But I will say this for you, René, you’re not one not to take a girl seriously.”
René looked puzzled. His mother laughed.
“Go on, you great gaby; don’t tell me you don’t know what you can do with those eyes of yours.”
This annoyed him with its suggestion of a deliberate manipulation on his part of the springs of affection.
“Oh, mother,” he said, “you’ve been so different since my father came back, and I’m different, and everything seems to be changing so swiftly that it is hard to tell—hard to tell where we are. We seem so far away from the old life, just you and I together.”
Mrs. Fourmy looked at him and replied: