“The wood is very pretty,” he said, “although you can’t see it, and there are no lamps.”
“You are laughing at me, sir; but if you consider that I never was out of the reach of the lamps before. Hampstead is the furthest I have been, and there are lamps there even on the heath. The darkness is one of the things that strikes me most. It is so dark you can feel it. It’s black.” She gave another little shiver, and said, after a moment, “I do so love the light.”
Her tone, her words, the ease with which she spoke, filled Walter with surprise—a surprise which he expressed without thinking, with a frankness which perhaps he would not have displayed had his companion not been Martha’s friend.
“And what,” he said, “can you be doing in our village, and at old Crockford’s? I can’t understand it. You are a—you’re not a—”
He began to recollect himself when he came this length. To say “you’re a lady” seemed quite simple when he began to speak; but as he went on it did not prove so easy. If she was a lady how could he venture to make any such remark?
She gave a little soft laugh which was very pretty to hear. “Old Crockford is—a sort of an uncle of mine,” she said.
“Your uncle!”
“Well, no—not quite my uncle, but something a little like it. When I am humble-minded I call him so; when I am not humble-minded—”
“What happens then?”
“I say as little about it as I can; I think as little about it as I can. No,” she said, with a little vehemence, “I’m not a lady, and yet I’m not a—Martha Crockford. I am a poor little London cockney girl. You shouldn’t be walking with me, sir; you oughtn’t to see me home, you, a gentleman’s son. People might talk. As soon as we get into the moonlight there, where it is so bright, I will release you and run home.”