"You are tired," she said. "I think we both are a little tired."
"I am not. Anyway, I have something to write about now. Wait a moment till I make a note of how you walk—the easy, graceful, flowing motion, so exquisitely light and——"
"But I don't walk like that!" she said, laughing.
"—Graciously as a youthful goddess," muttered Brown, scribbling away busily in his note-book.[143] "Tell me; what motive had you just now in rising and coming to ask me what was the matter—with such a sweetly apprehensive expression in your eyes?"
"My—my motive?" she repeated, astonished.
"Yes. You had one, hadn't you?"
"Why—I don't know. You looked worried; so I came."
"The motive," said Brown, "was feminine solicitude—an emotion natural to nice women. Thank you." And he made a note of it.
"But motives and emotions are different things," she said timidly. "I had no motive for coming to ask you why you seemed troubled."
"Wasn't your motive to learn why?"