As we drove away, all of the many people in the streets were hurrying to take refuge from the sudden and unexpected downfall of heavy rain. Women picked their way with the skill of the Parisienne, men ran for shelter, and the carriages coming in haste from the afternoon drives thronged the great avenue. The scene was not without amusement for people not subject to its inconvenience and to the damage of gay gowns. I made some laughing comment. She made no reply. Presently, however, she took out her purse and said, “Monsieur will at least permit me to—”
“Pardon me,” I returned gaily: “I am just now the host, and as it may never again chance that I have the pleasure of madame for a guest, I must insist on my privileges.”
For the first time she laughed, as if more at ease, and said, looking up from her purse and flushing a little: “Unluckily, I cannot insist, as I find that I am, for the time, too poor to be proud. I can only pay in thanks. I am glad it is a fellow-countryman to whom I am indebted.”
We seemed to be getting on to more agreeable social terms, and I expressed my regret that the torrent outside was beginning to leak in at the window and through the top of the carriage. For a moment she made no remark, and then said with needless emphasis:
“Yes, yes. It is dreadful. I hope—I mean, I trust—that it will never occur again.”
It was odd and hardly courteous. I said only, “Yes, it must be disagreeable.”
“Oh, I mean—I can’t explain—I mean this—special ride, and I—I am so wet.”
Of course I accepted this rather inadequate explanation of language which somehow did not seem to me to fit a woman evidently of the best social class. As if she too felt the need to substitute a material inconvenience for a less comprehensible and too abrupt statement, she added: “I am really drenched,” and then, as though with a return of some more urgent feeling, “but there are worse things.”
I said, “That may very well be.” I began to realize as singular the whole of this interview—the broken phrases which I could not interpret, the look of worry, the embarrassment of long silences.
After a time, at her request, we turned into one of the smaller avenues. Meanwhile I made brief efforts at impersonal talk—the rain, the vivid lightning,—wondering if it were the latter which made her so nervous. She murmured short replies, and at last I gave up my efforts at talk, and we drove on in silence, the darkness meanwhile coming the sooner for the storm.