“I lay awake last night wondering what makes you like him so. He's so bitter; he makes me feel unhappy. He never seems content with anything. And he despises”—her face hardened—“I mean, he hates us all!”
“So should I if I were he,” said Shelton.
The boat was drifting on, and gleams of sunlight chased across their faces. Antonia spoke again.
“He seems to be always looking at dark things, or else he seems as if—as if he could—enjoy himself too much. I thought—I thought at first,” she stammered, “that we could do him good.”
“Do him good! Ha, ha!”
A startled rat went swimming for its life against the stream; and Shelton saw that he had done a dreadful thing: he had let Antonia with a jerk into a secret not hitherto admitted even by himself—the secret that her eyes were not his eyes, her way of seeing things not his nor ever would be. He quickly muffled up his laughter. Antonia had dropped her gaze; her face regained its languor, but the bosom of her dress was heaving. Shelton watched her, racking his brains to find excuses for that fatal laugh; none could he find. It was a little piece of truth. He paddled slowly on, close to the bank, in the long silence of the river.
The breeze had died away, not a fish was rising; save for the lost music of the larks no birds were piping; alone, a single pigeon at brief intervals cooed from the neighbouring wood.
They did not stay much longer in the boat.
On the homeward journey in the pony-cart, rounding a corner of the road, they came on Ferrand in his pince-nez, holding a cigarette between his fingers and talking to a tramp, who was squatting on the bank. The young foreigner recognised them, and at once removed his hat.
“There he is,” said Shelton, returning the salute.