He took her hand and held it, awkward as a child with a new playmate.
“All right, at about four. If there's nobody there, we'll play music,” he said.
She pulled her hand from him hurriedly, made a curious formal gesture of farewell, and crossed the road to the gate without looking back. There was one idea in his head, to get to his room and lock the door and throw himself face down on the bed. The idea amused some distant part of his mind. That had been what he had always done when, as a child, the world had seemed too much for him. He would run upstairs and lock the door and throw himself face downward on the bed. “I wonder if I shall cry?” he thought.
Madame Boncour was coming down the stairs as he went up. He backed down and waited. When she got to the bottom, pouting a little, she said:
“So you are a friend of Mme. Rod, Monsieur?”
“How did you know that?”
A dimple appeared near her mouth in either cheek.
“You know, in the country, one knows everything,” she said.
“Au revoir,” he said, starting up the stairs.
“Mais, Monsieur. You should have told me. If I had known I should not have asked you to pay in advance. Oh, never. You must pardon me, Monsieur.”