Chapter 29 - Page 2

shut her eyes as it
passed, and clutched at Archer's hand.

"If only it doesn't mean--poor Granny!"

"Oh, no, no--she's much better--she's all right, really.
There--we've passed it!" he exclaimed, as if that
made all the difference. Her hand remained in his, and
as the carriage lurched across the gang-plank onto the
ferry he bent over, unbuttoned her tight brown glove,
and kissed her palm as if he had kissed a relic. She
disengaged herself with a faint smile, and he said:
"You didn't expect me today?"

"Oh, no."

"I meant to go to Washington to see you. I'd made
all my arrangements--I very nearly crossed you in the
train."

"Oh--" she exclaimed, as if terrified by the narrowness
of their escape.

"Do you know--I hardly remembered you?"

"Hardly remembered me?"

"I mean: how shall I explain? I--it's always so. EACH
TIME YOU HAPPEN TO ME ALL OVER AGAIN."

"Oh, yes: I know! I know!"

"Does it--do I too: to you?" he insisted.

She nodded, looking out of the window.

"Ellen--Ellen--Ellen!"

She made no answer, and he sat in silence, watching
her profile grow indistinct against the snow-streaked
dusk beyond the window. What had she been doing in
all those four long months, he wondered? How little
they knew of each other, after all! The precious moments
were slipping away, but he had forgotten everything
that he had meant to say to her and could only
helplessly brood on the mystery of their remoteness
and their proximity, which seemed to be symbolised by
the fact of their sitting so close to each other, and yet
being unable to see each other's faces.

"What a pretty carriage! Is it May's?" she asked,
suddenly turning her face from the window.

"Yes."

"It was May who sent you to fetch me, then? How
kind of her!"

He made no answer for a moment; then he said
explosively: "Your husband's secretary came to see me
the day after we met in Boston."

In his brief letter to her he had made no allusion to
M. Riviere's visit, and his intention had been to bury
the incident in his bosom. But her reminder that they
were in his wife's carriage provoked him to an impulse
of retaliation. He would see if she liked his reference to
Riviere any better than he liked hers to May! As on
certain other occasions when he had expected to shake
her out of her usual composure, she betrayed no sign of
surprise: and at once he concluded: "He writes to her,
then."

"M. Riviere went to see you?"

"Yes: didn't you know?"

"No," she answered simply.

"And you're not surprised?"

She hesitated. "Why should I be? He told me in
Boston that he knew you;