“But you said that before, dearest!”
“Yes; but just now it struck me as a very novel idea. What if your mother shouldn't like the idea?”
“Nonsense! you know she perfectly idolises you. She did from the first. And doesn't she know how I've begin behaving about you ever since I—lost you?”
“How have you behaved? Do tell me, Alice?”
“Some time; not now,” she said; and with something that was like a gasp, and threatened to be a sob, she suddenly whipped across the road. He walked back to Charles Street by the Garden path, keeping abreast of her, and not losing sight of her for a moment, except when the bulk of a string team watering at the trough beside the pavement intervened. He hurried by, and when he had passed it he found himself exactly abreast of her again. Her face was turned toward him; they exchanged a smile, lost in space. At the corner of Charles Street he deliberately crossed over to her.
“O dearest love! why did you come?” she implored.
“Because you signed to me.”
“I hoped you wouldn't see it. If we're both to be so weak as this, what are we going to do?”
“But I'm glad you came. Yes: I was frightened. They must have overheard us there when we were talking.”
“Well, I didn't say anything I'm ashamed of. Besides, I shouldn't care much for the opinion of those nurses and babies.”