A long silence stole on them. There was so much that struggled to be said, so little that could be said. At last the young man gripped his crutches and wriggled from his chair. She rose swiftly to aid him.
“Let us have a turn in the sun. It will be good for us.”
So they went out and she helped him, against his will—for he loved his triumph over difficulties—down the majestic marble stairs, and they passed the happy tennis courts and the chairs of the cheery invalids looking on at the game, and on through the Japanese garden with its pond of great water-lilies and fairy bridge across, and out of the gate into the little beech wood that screened the house from the home farm. On a rough seat amid the sun-flecked greenery they sat down.
He said: “I may be a sentimental ass, but you seem to be nearer to me than anyone I’ve ever met in my life.”
She made a little helpless gesture. He laughed his pleasant laugh, which robbed his lips of their hardness.
“You supply a long-felt want, you know.”
“That sounds rather nice, but I don’t quite understand, Mr. Baltazar.”
“Oh, Mr. Baltazar be blowed!” he cried. “My name’s Godfrey. For God’s sake let me hear somebody call me by it! You of all people. Why, you knew me before I was born.”
He said it unthinking—a boyish epigram. Her sudden flush brought consciousness of blunder in elemental truth and taste. He sat stiff, horrified; gasped out:
“Forgive me. I didn’t realize what I was saying.”