Still there is not a vestige of a smile on his face. He does not look at me as he speaks; his eyes are on the long, dead knots of the colorless grass at his feet; in his expression despondency and preoccupation strive for supremacy.
"Have you made your head ache?" I say, gently stealing my hand into his; "there is nothing that addles the brains like muddling over accounts, is there?"
Am I awake? Can I believe it? He has dropped my hand, as if he disliked the touch of it.
"No, thanks, no. I have no headache," he answers, hastily.
Another little silence. We are marching quickly along, as if our great object were to get our tête-à-tête over. As we came, we dawdled, stood still to listen to the lark, to look at the wool-soft cloud-heaps piled in the west—on any trivial excuse indeed; but now all these things are changed.
"Did you talk of business all the time?" I ask, by-and-by, with timid curiosity.
It is not my fancy; he does plainly hesitate.
"Not quite all," he answers, in a low voice, and still looking away from me.
"About what, then?" I persist, in a voice through whose counterfeit playfulness I myself too plainly hear the unconquerable tremulousness; "may not I hear?—or is it a secret?"
He does not answer; it seems to me that he is considering what response to make.