Chapter 23 - Page 2

hour. He flushed
with anger at his own stupidity: why had he not sent
the note as soon as he arrived?

He found his hat and stick and went forth into the
street. The city had suddenly become as strange and
vast and empty as if he were a traveller from distant
lands. For a moment he stood on the door-step hesitating;
then he decided to go to the Parker House. What if
the messenger had been misinformed, and she were still
there?

He started to walk across the Common; and on the
first bench, under a tree, he saw her sitting. She had a
grey silk sunshade over her head--how could he ever
have imagined her with a pink one? As he approached
he was struck by her listless attitude: she sat there as if
she had nothing else to do. He saw her drooping profile,
and the knot of hair fastened low in the neck
under her dark hat, and the long wrinkled glove on the
hand that held the sunshade. He came a step or two
nearer, and she turned and looked at him.

"Oh"--she said; and for the first time he noticed a
startled look on her face; but in another moment it
gave way to a slow smile of wonder and contentment.

"Oh"--she murmured again, on a different note, as
he stood looking down at her; and without rising she
made a place for him on the bench.

"I'm here on business--just got here," Archer
explained; and, without knowing why, he suddenly began
to feign astonishment at seeing her. "But what on earth
are you doing in this wilderness?" He had really no
idea what he was saying: he felt as if he were shouting
at her across endless distances, and she might vanish
again before he could overtake her.

"I? Oh, I'm here on business too," she answered,
turning her head toward him so that they were face to
face. The words hardly reached him: he was aware
only of her voice, and of the startling fact that not an
echo of it had remained in his memory. He had not
even remembered that it was low-pitched, with a faint
roughness on the consonants.

"You do your hair differently," he said, his heart
beating as if he had uttered something irrevocable.

"Differently? No--it's only that I do it as best I can
when I'm without Nastasia."

"Nastasia; but isn't she with you?"

"No; I'm alone. For two days it was not worth while
to bring her."

"You're alone--at the Parker House?"

She looked at him with a flash of her old malice.
"Does it strike you as dangerous?"

"No; not dangerous--"

"But unconventional? I see; I suppose it is." She
considered a moment. "I hadn't thought of it, because
I've just done something so much more unconventional."
The faint tinge of irony lingered in her eyes. "I've just
refused to