"Well, put him in your muff and let us hustle."
Fenella quickened her pace resolutely, but every now and then would stop to be sure the creature was alive, breaking into a run afterward to overtake her escort.
"I'm sorry," she said at last, penitently, as she saw him waiting for her. "I tell you what I'll do. I'll put my finger in every now and then and, if he pecks, I'll know he's alive. Why does he peck me when I saved him? Birds have no brain. Cookie had a canary once that flew into a fly-paper; it took ever so long to unstick his wings. I hope this isn't one of the sort that won't sing unless its eyes are put out."
In the train the bird still absorbed her. They had a compartment to themselves, and Paul watched her curiously through his cigar smoke. He was wondering whether he had been bored or amused. A little of both he concluded. She was a good girl, but quite immature, and utterly—oh! utterly trivial. There was probably some babbling old mother at home whom she took after, for a warning and example. She was lovely, oh, yes—lovely enough to make the most careless heart ache—the rashest "gazer wipe his eye." But for a man like himself that was not an entire explanation. Wherein lay her charm? For charm there was; one, too, that survived the long day spent in her company. There was no use denying it; walks in Richmond Park, alone, would be sad affairs from now on. Alone, because, of course, this one must never be repeated. Butterflies are pretty things to watch, once in a way; but, since to clutch remains a human instinct, and since no man who thinks in his heart ever wants to see that sort of down upon his clumsy fingers, it would be better if—be better if——What were the clanging, ringing wheels saying now? Hark!
"Be its beauty its sole duty:
Be its beauty its sole duty...."
Ah! yes. That was what he has been trying to think of all day. And yet people could be found to called Browning "obscure."
"Be its beauty its sole duty!"
"Oh, Mr. Ingram! Look! It's stopped pecking and is beginning to look round."
He leaned across the carriage. He may have meant to do no more than touch the enfolding hands that lay so near his lips. But her own mouth was nearer still, and he kissed that.