He gave the driver precise directions, climbed in, and settled himself beside the girl. The whip cracked, the horse sighed, the driver swore; the aged fiacre groaned, stirred with reluctance, crawled wearily off through the thickening drizzle.
Within its body a common restraint held silence like a wall between the two.
The girl sat with face averted, reading through the window what corner signs they passed: rue Bonaparte, rue Jacob, rue des Saints Pères, Quai Malquais, Pont du Carrousel; recognizing at least one landmark in the gloomy arches of the Louvre; vaguely wondering at the inept French taste in nomenclature which had christened that vast, louring, echoing quadrangle the place du Carrousel, unliveliest of public places in her strange Parisian experience.
And in his turn, Lanyard reviewed those well-remembered ways in vast weariness of spirit—disgusted with himself in consciousness that the girl had somehow divined his distrust….
"The Lone Wolf, eh?" he mused bitterly. "Rather, the Cornered Rat—if people only knew! Better still, the Errant—no!—the Arrant Ass!"
They were skirting the Palais Royal when suddenly she turned to him in an impulsive attempt at self-justification.
"What must you be thinking of me, Mr. Lanyard?"
He was startled: "I? Oh, don't consider me, please. It doesn't matter what I think—does it?"
"But you've been so kind; I feel I owe you at least some explanation—"
"Oh, as for that," he countered cheerfully, "I've got a pretty definite notion you're running away from your father."