“If you are going to indulge in the mopes—you know what the mopes are—the blues—I refuse to leave you alone.”
“But, Monsieur Littledale, I don’t see—” she began, drawing herself up.
“What business it is of mine?” I said, smiling. “No, no, you can intimidate me at other times—you do that, you know—but not now, when I feel that you are sad, and—please don’t go away,” I said hurriedly, as she began to draw her cape about her. “I want to talk to you.”
“But in France we don’t talk alone with young men,” she protested, yet I noticed that she lingered.
“You are not in France, now, and we are not alone,” I said, indicating a group of children who were playing on the opposite deck.
She glanced in the direction of my gesture.
“Please, I do want to talk to you.”
Her look came to my eyes, the first time that her glance had met mine openly, and in the look was gravity, friendliness, and a shade of uncertainty. Then she looked away, hesitating.
“It is a new country and a new life you are going to, Mademoiselle,” I said quickly, “and if our ways seem freer, you will find at the bottom that you can always count on one thing,—the friendship and protection of our men.”
“You have been very kind to me, Mr. Littledale,” she said solemnly.