That evening Paul said to himself, 'I vastly fear that something serious has happened to you. No, she's everything you like, but she isn't that sort.'
He was depressed, dejected; the reaction, no doubt, from the excitement of her presence. 'She's married, of course; and of course she's got a lover. And of course she'll never care a pin for the likes of me. And of course she sees what's the matter with me, and is laughing in her sleeve. And I had thought myself impervious. Oh, damn all women.'
X.
'Don't stop; ride on,' he called out to her, next morning, 'I shan't be amusing to-day. I'm frightfully low in my mind.'
'Perhaps it will amuse me to study you in a new aspect,' she said. 'You can entertain me with the story of your griefs.'
'Bare my wounds to make a lady smile. Oh, anything to oblige you.'
She leapt lightly from Bézigue, and sank upon the moss.
'What is it all about?'
'Oh, not what you imagine,' said he. 'It's about my debts.'
'I had hoped it was about your sins.'