"Let's walk up this way," she was saying; "walk over the river. The bridge is a good place just now."
Katie's face was white and tense as some of the faces they had left behind "No," he said impetuously. "Let's not. Let's do something jolly!"
She shook her head "I have a feeling we're going to find her to-night."
Katie was always having that feeling. But as she looked then he had not the heart to remind her of the many times it had played her false.
Many girls passed them on the bridge, but not Ann. "I can never make up my mind to go," she said. "I always think I ought to wait till the next one comes round the corner."
A girl who appeared to be thinking deeply passed them, turning weary eyes upon them in languid interest.
"I wonder what," Katie exclaimed. "What she's thinking about," she explained. "Maybe she's come to the end of her string—and if she has, hundreds of thousands of people about her—oh I think it's terrible"—her voice broke—"the way people are crowded so close together—and held so far apart. Everybody's alone. Nobody knows."
For a second his hand closed over hers as it rested on the railing of the bridge, as if he would bear some of the hurt for her, that hurt she was finding in everything.
Despite the extreme simplicity of her dress she looked out of place standing on that bridge at that hour; he was thinking that she had not lost her distinction with her buoyancy.
Her face was quivering. "Katie," it made him ask, "don't you think you'd better—quit?"