you than merely a paid guide. So did Jim. We—it is rather lonely for us. You are the first real man who has come into our lives in five years. Do you understand, Mr. Marche?"
"Of course I do."
"Are you sure you do? We would like to feel that we could talk to you—Jim would. It is pleasant to hear a man from the real world speaking. Not that the people here are unkind, only"—she looked up at him almost wistfully—"we are like you, Mr. Marche—and we feel starved, sometimes."
He did not trust himself to speak, even to look at her, just at the moment. Not heretofore sentimental, but always impressionable, he was young enough
to understand, wise enough not to misunderstand.
After a while, leaning back in the blind, he began, almost casually, talking about things in that Northern world which had once been hers, assuming their common interest in matters purely local, in details, of metropolitan affairs, in the changing physiognomy of the monstrous city, its superficial aspects, its complex phases.
Timidly, at first, she ventured a question now and then, and after a while, as her reserve melted, she asked more boldly, and even offered her own comments on men and things, so that, for the first time, he had a glimpse of her mind at work—brief, charming surprises, momentary views of a young
girl's eager intelligence, visions of her sad and solitary self, more guessed at than revealed in anything she said or left unsaid.
And now they were talking together with free and unfeigned interest and pleasure, scarcely turning for a glance at the water or sky, save when old Uncle Dudley made insulting remarks to some slow-drifting gull or soaring bird of prey.
All the pent-up and natural enthusiasm of years was fairly bubbling to her lips; all the long-suppressed necessity of speech with one of her own kind who was not of her own kin.