He put a vast amount of shock and regret in the mumbled word. He explained: “I must have been out in the forest or in the mines at the time. Forgive me for opening the old wound. How long ago was it? I see you’re out of mourning.”
“Sir Joseph abominated black; and besides, few people wear mourning in England during the war.”
“That’s so. Poor old England! You poor Englishwomen––mothers and daughters! My God! what you’ve gone through! And such pluck!”
Before he realized what he was doing his hand went across and touched hers, and he clenched it for just a moment of fierce sympathy. She did not resent the message. Then he muttered:
“I know what it means. I lost my father and mother––not at once, of course––years apart. But to lose them both in one night!”
She made a sharp attempt at self-control:
“Please! I beg you––please don’t speak of it.”
He was so sorry that he said nothing more. Marie Louise was doubly fascinating to him because she was in sorrow and afraid of something or somebody. Besides, she was inaccessible, and Ross Davidge always felt a challenge from the impossible and the inaccessible.
She called for her check and paid it, and tipped the waiter and rose. She smiled wretchedly at him as he rose with her. She left the dining-car, and he sat down and cursed himself for a brute and a blunderer.
He kept in the offing, so that if she wanted him she could call him, but he thought it the politer politeness not to italicize his chivalry. He was so distressed that he forgot that she had forgotten to pay him for the chair.