Her eyes are fixed upon the soaring date-palm, which stands, instead of a water-jet, in the middle of the fountain-basin, and on which last year's dead plumes hang sapless, and ready to fall off, in contrast to this year's verdant vigour.
"Is not that rather a tantalizing question when you did not ask me?" inquires she, with soft archness. "Yes, I suspect that I should; I was so very happy yesterday; and although you told me the other night"—swallowing a sigh—"that you supposed I must love my own society, in point of fact, I do not think I do."
After all, the sun is not quite gone; there are flashes of light in the verdant gloom, and green reflections in the water.
"And yet," says Jim thoughtfully, "you seem to have a good deal of it; I suppose, in your position, it is unavoidable."
He had meant an allusion to her situation as bad third to her uxorious parents; before his mind's eye has risen a picture of the little forlorn shawled figure he had seen studying its Italian Grammar with the door shut upon its loneliness; but almost before the words have left his lips, he sees of how different, of how cruel, a construction they may be capable.
He snatches a glance of real terror at her, to see whether she has made that erroneous, yet all too plausible application—a glance which confirms his worst fears. She has turned as white as the pocket-handkerchief which she is passing over her trembling lips.
"Yes," she says in a hollow whisper; "you are right. In my position it is unavoidable, and it is cowardly of me not to accept it as such."
"I mean"—he cries desperately—"I only meant—I mean——"
But she does not suffer him to finish his stuttered explanation.
"It is cold," she says, rising. "I will go home."