The Broad Highway

"But," she continued more seriously, "this has nothing to do with

you, of course, nor me, for that matter, and I was trying to tell

you how hungry--how hatefully hungry I was, and I couldn't beg,

could I, and so--and so I--I--"

"You came back," said I.

"I came back."

"Being hungry."

"Famishing!"

"Three pounds, fifteen shillings, and--sevenpence is not a great

sum," said I, "but perhaps it will enable you to reach your family."

"I'm afraid not; you see I have no family."

"Your friends, then."

"I have no friends; I am alone in the world."

"Oh!" said I, and turned to stare down into the brook, for I

could think only that she was alone and solitary, even as I,

which seemed like an invisible bond between us, drawing us each

nearer the other, whereat I felt ridiculously pleased that this

should be so.

"No," said Charmian, still intent upon the twig, "I have neither

friends nor family nor money, and so being hungry--I came back

here, and ate up all the bacon."

"Why, I hadn't left much, if I remember."

"Six slices!"

Now, as she stood, half in shadow, half in moonlight, I could not

help but be conscious of her loveliness. She was no pretty

woman; beneath the high beauty of her face lay a dormant power

that is ever at odds with prettiness, and before which I felt

vaguely at a loss. And yet, because of her warm beauty, because

of the elusive witchery of her eyes, the soft, sweet column of

the neck and the sway of the figure in the moonlight--because she

was no goddess, and I no shepherd in Arcadia, I clasped my hands

behind me, and turned to look down into the stream.

"Indeed," said I, speaking my thought aloud, "this is no place

for a woman, after all."

"No," said she very softly.

"No--although, to be sure, there are worse places."

"Yes," said she, "I suppose so."

"Then again, it is very far removed from the world, so that a

woman must needs be cut off from all those little delicacies and

refinements that are supposed to be essential to her existence."

"Yes," she sighed.

"Though what," I continued, "what on earth would be the use of

a--harp, let us say, or a pair of curling-irons in this wilderness,

I don't know."