They lunched in the station restaurant at Genoa, and there he bought the girl a basket of fruit. “A poor substitute for the tea you will be wanting presently,” he explained. “You have no tea-basket with you? You will want one if you are going to live with Italians.”
“I never thought of it.”
“May I send you one?” he asked eagerly. “Do let me.”
Olive flushed with pleasure. No one had been so kind to her since her mother died. Evidently he liked her—oh! he liked her very much. She suddenly realised how much she would miss him when they parted at Florence and she had to go on alone. It had been so good to be with someone stronger than herself who would take care of her. He had seemed happy too, and she thought he looked younger now than he did when she first saw him standing by the bookstall at Victoria station.
“It is very good of you,” she said. “I should like it. Thank you. I—I shall be sorry to say good-bye.”
He met her wistful eyes gravely. “I should like you to know that I shall never forget this day,” he said. “I shall never cease to be grateful to you for being so—for being what you are. My wife is different.”
“Your wife—”
“I don’t live with her.”
He took a card from his case presently and scribbled an address on it. “I dare not hope that I shall ever hear from you again, but that is my name, and letters will always be forwarded to me from my brother’s place. If ever I could do anything—”
She faltered some word of thanks in an uncertain voice. She felt as if something had come upon her for which she was unprepared, some shadow of the world’s pain, some flame of its fires that flickered at her heart for a moment and was gone. She was suddenly afraid, not of the brown eyes that were fixed so hungrily upon her face, but of herself. She could hear the beating of her own heart. The pity of it—the pity of it! He was so nice. Why could not they be friends—