"Are you not going beyond your strength?" he said at length gently.
Fleda said no, although in a tone that half confessed his suspicion. He was silent again, however, and she cast about in vain for something to speak of; it seemed to her that all subjects of conversation in general had been packed up for exportation, neither eye nor memory could light upon a single one. Block after block was passed, the pace at which he walked, and the manner of his care for her, alone shewing that he knew what a very light hand was resting upon his arm.
"How pretty the curl of blue smoke is from that chimney," he said.
It was said with a tone so carelessly easy that Fleda's heart jumped for one instant in the persuasion that he had seen and noticed nothing peculiar about her.
"I know it," she said eagerly,--"I have often thought of it--especially here in the city--"
"Why is it? what is it?--"
Fleda's eye gave one of its exploratory looks at his, such as he remembered from years ago, before she spoke.
"Isn't it contrast?--or at least I think that helps the effect here."
"What do you make the contrast?" he said quietly.
"Isn't it," said Fleda with another glance, "the contrast of something pure and free and upward-tending, with what is below it. I did not mean the mere painter's contrast. In the country smoke is more picturesque, but in the city I think it has more character."