“No.”
She walked a little way in silence, kicking up the dried leaves with her toes.
“What would you do?” he said.
Her voice became fierce. “I should——” she began, and stopped. She walked a few steps as if pondering, then she laughed airily and tossed her head. “I really don’t know what I should do. Only I’m certain of one thing: I shouldn’t be with you here.”
She could almost feel the extent to which her conversation was mystifying him.
Then she became quiet and submissive, nestling like a stray kitten at his side. She took his arm.
“I’m going to lean on you,” she said; “I nearly fell over a tree root just there.”
He looked gratified. For three or four minutes they walked on in silence. He had plenty he wished to say, but as a matter of fact he thought this particular silence, coming when it did, rather impressive, and he was unwilling to curtail it by a remark unworthy of its profundity. He was engaged in thinking of that remark, a remark that should not so much break the silence as guide it into still more profound depths. He had almost decided on what he should say when quickly and without any warning she snatched her arm from his and scampered a few paces ahead.
“Oh, George,” she cried, with an extraordinary mingling of passion and irritation, “do say something! For God’s sake keep up the conversation! We’ve been a quarter of an hour without a word. Say something, anything you like—only I can’t stand this mooning about under the trees saying nothing!”
“You’re in a very extraordinary mood to-night,” he said deliberately. He was genuinely disappointed.