“Ah”—he half-groaned. “I only wish I knew what was the right way to talk to you. The real thing is that I see you're unhappy—and that gets on my nerve—and I should like to ask you if there wasn't something I could do—and ask it in such a way that you'd have to admit there was—and I don't know enough to do it.”
He had a wan smile for thanks. “But of course there is nothing,” she replied, gently.
“Oh, there must be!” he insisted. He had no longer any clear notions as to where his tongue might not lead him. “There must be! You said I might talk to you as I would to Julia.”
“Did I?”
“Well, I'm going to, anyway,” he went on stoutly, ignoring the note of definite dissent in her interruption. “You ARE unhappy! You spoke about being a chaperone. Well now, to speak plainly, if it isn't entirely pleasant for you with Miss Madden—why wouldn't you be a chaperone for Julia? I must be going to London very soon—but she can stay here, or go to Egypt, or wherever she likes—and of course you would do everything, and have everything—whatever you liked, too.”
“The conversation is getting upon rather impossible grounds, I'm afraid,” she said, and then bit her lips together. Halting, she frowned a little in the effort of considering her further words, but there was nothing severe in the glance which she lifted to him as she began to speak. “Let us walk on. I must tell you that you misconceive the situation entirely. Nobody could possibly be kinder or more considerate than Miss Madden. Of course she is American—or rather Irish-American, and I'm English, and our notions and ways are not always alike. But that has nothing to do with it. And it is not so much that she has many thousands a year, and I only a few hundreds. That in itself would signify nothing—and if I must take help from somebody I would rather take it from Celia Madden than anybody else I know—but this is the point, Mr. Thorpe. I do not eat the bread of dependence gracefully. I pull wry faces over it, and I don't try very much to disguise them. That is my fault. Yes—oh yes, I know it is a fault—but I am as I am. And if Miss Madden doesn't mind—why”—she concluded with a mirthless, uncertain laugh—“why on earth should you?”
“Ah, why should I?” he echoed, reflectively. “I should like desperately to tell you why. Sometime I will tell you.”
They walked on in silence for a brief space. Then she put out her hand for her wrap, and as she paused, he spread it over her shoulders.
“I am amazed to think what we have been saying to each other,” she said, buttoning the fur as they moved on again. “I am vexed with myself.”
“And more still with me,” he suggested.