But his face clouded over. She noticed this, and it put her still less at her ease. She hurriedly added something about her father’s “coincidence,” thereby causing her companion to write her down insincere.
“Nevertheless,” she continued, desperately, feeling all the while that she might just as well, and far better, keep silence, “twelve years seems to me a most tremendous time.”
“That is because you are young.”
“Young or not, people change in twelve years.”
Gerard would have availed himself of this palpable opportunity to suggest something pretty; clumsy Otto merely made answer, “My grandfather is dead.” The most tragic words can somehow sound funny, and Ursula, in her nervousness, very nearly laughed.
“I miss him,” continued Otto, quite unconsciously. “He wasn’t—childish, you know, when I went away. How the poor old man would have enjoyed some talks about my tiger-hunts. He was such a splendid shot.”
“‘GIRD UP YOUR LOINS!’ CRIED THE DOMINÉ”