For a moment he forgot his errand, till suddenly arousing himself he
addressed her, formally condoled with her, and made the usual
professional inquiries about what had happened to her, and where she
was hurt.
"That's what I want you to tell me," she murmured, in tones of
indefinable reserve. "I quite believe in you, for I know you are very
accomplished, because you study so hard."
"I'll do my best to justify your good opinion," said the young man,
bowing. "And none the less that I am happy to find the accident has
not been serious."
"I am very much shaken," she said.
"Oh yes," he replied; and completed his examination, which convinced
him that there was really nothing the matter with her, and more than
ever puzzled him as to why he had been fetched, since she did not
appear to be a timid woman. "You must rest a while, and I'll send
something," he said.
"Oh, I forgot," she returned. "Look here." And she showed him a little
scrape on her arm--the full round arm that was exposed. "Put some
court-plaster on that, please."
He obeyed. "And now," she said, "before you go I want to put a
question to you. Sit round there in front of me, on that low chair,
and bring the candles, or one, to the little table. Do you smoke? Yes?
That's right--I am learning. Take one of these; and here's a light."
She threw a matchbox across.
Fitzpiers caught it, and having lit up, regarded her from his new
position, which, with the shifting of the candles, for the first time
afforded him a full view of her face. "How many years have passed
since first we met!" she resumed, in a voice which she mainly
endeavored to maintain at its former pitch of composure, and eying him
with daring bashfulness.
"WE met, do you say?"
She nodded. "I saw you recently at an hotel in London, when you were
passing through, I suppose, with your bride, and I recognized you as
one I had met in my girlhood. Do you remember, when you were studying
at Heidelberg, an English family that was staying there, who used to
walk--"
"And the young lady who wore a long tail of rare-colored hair--ah, I
see it before my eyes!--who lost her gloves on the Great Terrace--who
was going back in the dusk to find them--to whom I said, 'I'll go for
them,' and you said, 'Oh, they are not worth coming all the way up
again for.' I DO remember, and how very long we stayed talking there! I
went next morning while the dew was on the grass: there they lay--the
little fingers sticking out damp and thin. I see them now! I picked
them up, and then--"