“I’m not the same person at any rate.”
She laughed. “Because you give yourself airs nowadays?”
“Even my giving myself airs,” he replied soberly, “denotes a change. But it’s deeper than that—it’s difficult to explain. I feel I have a grip on myself I hadn’t before,—and also an intensity of delight in things I never had before. The first half hour or so of our rides in the early dewy mornings, our rough déjeuners outside the little cafés, the long, drowsy afternoons under the trees, watching the lazy life of the road—the wine wagons and the bullock carts and the sunburnt men and women—and the brown, dusty children with their goats—and the quiet evenings under the stars when we have either sat alone saying nothing or else talked to the patron of the auberge and listened to his simple philosophy of life. And then to sleep drunk with air and sunshine between the clean coarse sheets—to sleep like a dog until the scurry of the house wakes you at dawn—I don’t know,” he fetched up lamely. “It has been a thrill, morning, noon and night—and my life before this was remarkably devoid of thrills. Of course,” he added after a slight pause, “you have had a good deal to do with it.”
“Je te remercie infiniment, mon frère,” said Corinna. “That is as much as to say I’ve not been a too dull companion.”
“You’ve been a delightful companion,” he cried boyishly. “I had no idea a girl could be so—so——” He sought for a word with his fingers.
Her eyes smiled on him and lips shewed ever so delicate a curl of irony.
“So what?”
“So companionable,” said he.
She laughed again. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“So sensible,” said Martin.