He looked of a sudden so extravagantly concerned that she laughed out."All day?Yes,we do feed once.But that was long ago.So I must presently say good-bye.""Oh deary ME!"he exclaimed with an intonation so droll and yet a touch so light and a distress so marked--a confession of helplessness for such a case,in short,so unrelieved--that she at once felt sure she had made the great difference plain.He looked at her with the kindest eyes and still without saying what she had known he wouldn't.She had known he wouldn't say "Then sup with ME!"but the proof of it made her feel as if she had feasted.
"I'm not a bit hungry,"she went on.
"Ah you MUST be,awfully!"he made answer,but settling himself on the bench as if,after all,that needn't interfere with his spending his evening."I've always quite wanted the chance to thank you for the trouble you so often take for me.""Yes,I know,"she replied;uttering the words with a sense of the situation far deeper than any pretence of not fitting his allusion.
She immediately felt him surprised and even a little puzzled at her frank assent;but for herself the trouble she had taken could only,in these fleeting minutes--they would probably never come back--be all there like a little hoard of gold in her lap.Certainly he might look at it,handle it,take up the pieces.Yet if he understood anything he must understand all."I consider you've already immensely thanked me."The horror was back upon her of having seemed to hang about for some reward."It's awfully odd you should have been there just the one time--!""The one time you've passed my place?"
"Yes;you can fancy I haven't many minutes to waste.There was a place to-night I had to stop at.""I see,I see--"he knew already so much about her work."It must be an awful grind--for a lady.""It is,but I don't think I groan over it any more than my companions--and you've seen THEY'RE not ladies!"She mildly jested,but with an intention."One gets used to things,and there are employments I should have hated much more."She had the finest conception of the beauty of not at least boring him.To whine,to count up her wrongs,was what a barmaid or a shop-girl would do,and it was quite enough to sit there like one of these.
"If you had had another employment,"he remarked after a moment,"we might never have become acquainted.""It's highly probable--and certainly not in the same way."Then,still with her heap of gold in her lap and something of the pride of it in her manner of holding her head,she continued not to move--she only smiled at him.The evening had thickened now;the scattered lamps were red;the Park,all before them,was full of obscure and ambiguous life;there were other couples on other benches whom it was impossible not to see,yet at whom it was impossible to look."But I've walked so much out of my way with you only just to show you that--that"--with this she paused;it was not after all so easy to express--"that anything you may have thought is perfectly true.""Oh I've thought a tremendous lot!"her companion laughed."Do you mind my smoking?""Why should I?You always smoke THERE."
"At your place?Oh yes,but here it's different.""No,"she said as he lighted a cigarette,"that's just what it isn't.It's quite the same.""Well,then,that's because 'there'it's so wonderful!""Then you're conscious of how wonderful it is?"she returned.
He jerked his handsome head in literal protest at a doubt."Why that's exactly what I mean by my gratitude for all your trouble.
It has been just as if you took a particular interest."She only looked at him by way of answer in such sudden headlong embarrassment,as she was quite aware,that while she remained silent he showed himself checked by her expression."You HAVE--haven't you?--taken a particular interest?"
"Oh a particular interest!"she quavered out,feeling the whole thing--her headlong embarrassment--get terribly the better of her,and wishing,with a sudden scare,all the more to keep her emotion down.She maintained her fixed smile a moment and turned her eyes over the peopled darkness,unconfused now,because there was something much more confusing.This,with a fatal great rush,was simply the fact that they were thus together.They were near,near,and all she had imagined of that had only become more true,more dreadful and overwhelming.She stared straight away in silence till she felt she looked an idiot;then,to say something,to say nothing,she attempted a sound which ended in a flood of tears.