And now this little laborious round-about speech, about going abroad, the pleasures of memory, and the rest of it, which might mean anything or nothing, was the only speech he could make. And she did not reply to it.
“Perhaps,” thought Eden, as he walked away after leaving her at her door, “she understood the feeling, but waited to hear it expressed a little more clearly.” Time would show, but it struck him on this evening that he had made little progress since the first meeting at Norland Square, and he thought with little satisfaction of his neglected opportunities, or, as he called them, his sins of omission.
CHAPTER XXXIII
To Fan's mind there was no note of warning in that little vague complimentary speech, and she thought nothing at all about it. It is quite impossible for a man to talk all day without saying meaningless if not foolish things, unless he happens to be a very solemn prig who carefully considers his words and lays them down like dominoes; and Eden was not that. His naturalness was his great charm, and she judged his feelings from her own; his simple transparent kindliness was enough to account for all his attentions to her. After that day at the Zoological Gardens she met him on other Sundays and Saturday afternoons, and also received some letters from him, and more books, all like the first in a wonderfully clean and well-kept condition.
One summer day Eden went to the City, a very unusual thing for him to do, and while making his way towards Cheapside through the hurrying crowd of pedestrians filling the narrow thoroughfare of St. Paul's Churchyard, he all at once came face to face with the long-lost Merton Chance. Involuntarily both started and stopped short on coming together. It was impossible to avoid speaking, which would have happened if they had recognised each other at a suitable distance. “Eden, is it possible!” “Chance, how glad I am to see you!” were the words they exclaimed at the same moment, as they clasped hands with fictitious warmth; and then, to avoid the crowd, Merton drew his friend aside through one of the open gates into the cathedral garden.
“Just back again from a trip to the Hindoo Koosh or the Mountains of the Moon, I suppose?” cried Merton with overflowing gaiety.
“I have not been out of London as it happens,” said Eden. “As you might have known if you had sent me your address. I wrote to you at Norland Square several weeks ago, asking you to lunch with me one day at the club, and the letter was returned through the Dead Letter Office, marked 'Gone away—no address.'”
“Ah, yes, I forgot to send you my new address at the time, and ever since moving I have been so overwhelmed with work and a hundred other things that I have really had no time to write. I have been anxiously looking forward to a few hours of leisure to make up all arrears of the kind.”