“Let’s move this way a little,” I proposed.
She turned at once and we made a few paces; not too far to take us out of sight of the hotel door, but very nearly. I could just keep my eyes on it. After all, I had not been so very long with the girl. If you were to disentangle the words we actually exchanged from my comments you would see that they were not so very many, including everything she had so unexpectedly told me of her story. No, not so very many. And now it seemed as though there would be no more. No! I could expect no more. The confidence was wonderful enough in its nature as far as it went, and perhaps not to have been expected from any other girl under the sun. And I felt a little ashamed. The origin of our intimacy was too gruesome. It was as if listening to her I had taken advantage of having seen her poor bewildered, scared soul without its veils. But I was curious, too; or, to render myself justice without false modesty—I was anxious; anxious to know a little more.
I felt like a blackmailer all the same when I made my attempt with a light-hearted remark.
“And so you gave up that walk you proposed to take?”
“Yes, I gave up the walk,” she said slowly before raising her downcast eyes. When she did so it was with an extraordinary effect. It was like catching sight of a piece of blue sky, of a stretch of open water. And for a moment I understood the desire of that man to whom the sea and sky of his solitary life had appeared suddenly incomplete without that glance which seemed to belong to them both. He was not for nothing the son of a poet. I looked into those unabashed eyes while the girl went on, her demure appearance and precise tone changed to a very earnest expression. Woman is various indeed.
“But I want you to understand, Mr. . . . ” she had actually to think of my name . . . “Mr. Marlow, that I have written to Mrs. Fyne that I haven’t been—that I have done nothing to make Captain Anthony behave to me as he had behaved. I haven’t. I haven’t. It isn’t my doing. It isn’t my fault—if she likes to put it in that way. But she, with her ideas, ought to understand that I couldn’t, that I couldn’t . . . I know she hates me now. I think she never liked me. I think nobody ever cared for me. I was told once nobody could care for me; and I think it is true. At any rate I can’t forget it.”
Her abominable experience with the governess had implanted in her unlucky breast a lasting doubt, an ineradicable suspicion of herself and of others. I said:
“Remember, Miss de Barral, that to be fair you must trust a man altogether—or not at all.”
She dropped her eyes suddenly. I thought I heard a faint sigh. I tried to take a light tone again, and yet it seemed impossible to get off the ground which gave me my standing with her.
“Mrs. Fyne is absurd. She’s an excellent woman, but really you could not be expected to throw away your chance of life simply that she might cherish a good opinion of your memory. That would be excessive.”