Look at the influence of a mere play of physiognomy! If you remember
what we were talking about you will hardly believe that I caught myself
grinning down at that demure little girl. I must say too that I felt
more friendly to her at the moment than ever before.
"Oh, you did? To take that jump? You are a determined young person.
Well, what happened that time?"
An almost imperceptible alteration in her bearing; a slight droop of her
head perhaps--a mere nothing--made her look more demure than ever.
"I had left the cottage," she began a little hurriedly. "I was walking
along the road--you know, the road. I had made up my mind I was not
coming back this time."
I won't deny that these words spoken from under the brim of her hat (oh
yes, certainly, her head was down--she had put it down) gave me a thrill;
for indeed I had never doubted her sincerity. It could never have been a
make-believe despair.
"Yes," I whispered. "You were going along the road."
"When . . . " Again she hesitated with an effect of innocent shyness
worlds asunder from tragic issues; then glided on . . . "When suddenly
Captain Anthony came through a gate out of a field."
I coughed down the beginning of a most improper fit of laughter, and felt
ashamed of myself. Her eyes raised for a moment seemed full of innocent
suffering and unexpressed menace in the depths of the dilated pupils
within the rings of sombre blue. It was--how shall I say it?--a night
effect when you seem to see vague shapes and don't know what reality you
may come upon at any time. Then she lowered her eyelids again, shutting
all mysteriousness out of the situation except for the sobering memory of
that glance, nightlike in the sunshine, expressively still in the brutal
unrest of the street.
"So Captain Anthony joined you--did he?"
"He opened a field-gate and walked out on the road. He crossed to my
side and went on with me. He had his pipe in his hand. He said: 'Are
you going far this morning?'"
These words (I was watching her white face as she spoke) gave me a slight
shudder. She remained demure, almost prim. And I remarked: "You have been talking together before, of course."
"Not more than twenty words altogether since he arrived," she declared
without emphasis. "That day he had said 'Good morning' to me when we met
at breakfast two hours before. And I said good morning to him. I did
not see him afterwards till he came out on the road."