"Yes. I'll tell you something. I wanted to be a little more
significant to you than merely a paid guide. So did Jim. We--it is
rather lonely for us. You are the first real man who has come into our
lives in five years. Do you understand, Mr. Marche?"
"Of course I do."
"Are you sure you do? We would like to feel that we could talk to
you--Jim would. It is pleasant to hear a man from the real world
speaking. Not that the people here are unkind, only"--she looked up at
him almost wistfully--"we are like you, Mr. Marche--and we feel
starved, sometimes."
He did not trust himself to speak, even to look at her, just at the
moment. Not heretofore sentimental, but always impressionable, he was
young enough to understand, wise enough not to misunderstand.
After a while, leaning back in the blind, he began, almost casually,
talking about things in that Northern world which had once been hers,
assuming their common interest in matters purely local, in details, of
metropolitan affairs, in the changing physiognomy of the monstrous city,
its superficial aspects, its complex phases.
Timidly, at first, she ventured a question now and then, and after a
while, as her reserve melted, she asked more boldly, and even offered
her own comments on men and things, so that, for the first time, he had
a glimpse of her mind at work--brief, charming surprises, momentary
views of a young girl's eager intelligence, visions of her sad and
solitary self, more guessed at than revealed in anything she said or
left unsaid.
And now they were talking together with free and unfeigned interest and
pleasure, scarcely turning for a glance at the water or sky, save when
old Uncle Dudley made insulting remarks to some slow-drifting gull or
soaring bird of prey.
All the pent-up and natural enthusiasm of years was fairly bubbling to
her lips; all the long-suppressed necessity of speech with one of her
own kind who was not of her own kin.
It seemed as though they conversed and exchanged views on every topic
which concerned heaven and earth, flashing from one subject to another
which had nothing at all to do with anything yet discussed.
Out around them the flat leagues of water turned glassy and calm as a
millpond; the ducks and geese were asleep on their stools; even old
Uncle Dudley stood sentinel, with one leg buried in the downy plumage of
his belly, but his weather eye remained brilliantly open to any stir in
the blue vault above.
They ate their luncheon there together, he serving her with hot coffee
from the vacuum bottle, she plying him with sandwiches.