Part 16 (2/2)
He could readily drop out at his destination, and bid the driver continue to the Gare du Nord; and the Metro was neither quick nor direct enough for his design--which included getting under cover well before daybreak.
Somewhat sulkily, then, if without betraying his temper, he signalled the cocher, opened the door, and handed the girl in.
”If you don't mind dropping me en route...”
”I shall be very glad,” she said ... ”anything to repay, even in part, the courtesy you've shown me!”
”Oh, please don't fret about that....”
He gave the driver precise directions, climbed in, and settled himself beside the girl. The whip cracked, the horse sighed, the driver swore; the aged fiacre groaned, stirred with reluctance, crawled wearily off through the thickening drizzle.
Within its body a common restraint held silence like a wall between the two.
The girl sat with face averted, reading through the window what corner signs they pa.s.sed: rue Bonaparte, rue Jacob, rue des Saints Peres, Quai Malquais, Pont du Carrousel; recognizing at least one landmark in the gloomy arches of the Louvre; vaguely wondering at the inept French taste in nomenclature which had christened that vast, louring, echoing quadrangle the place du Carrousel, unliveliest of public places in her strange Parisian experience.
And in his turn, Lanyard reviewed those well-remembered ways in vast weariness of spirit--disgusted with himself in consciousness that the girl had somehow divined his distrust....
”The Lone Wolf, eh?” he mused bitterly. ”Rather, the Cornered Rat--if people only knew! Better still, the Errant--no!--the Arrant a.s.s!”
They were skirting the Palais Royal when suddenly she turned to him in an impulsive attempt at self-justification.
”What _must_ you be thinking of me, Mr. Lanyard?”
He was startled: ”I? Oh, don't consider me, please. It doesn't matter what I think--does it?”
”But you've been so kind; I feel I owe you at least some explanation--”
”Oh, as for that,” he countered cheerfully, ”I've got a pretty definite notion you're running away from your father.”
”Yes. I couldn't stand it any longer--”
She caught herself up in full voice, as though tempted but afraid to say more. He waited briefly before offering encouragement.
”I hope I haven't seemed impertinent....”
”No, no!”
Than this impatient negative his pause of invitation evoked no other recognition. She had subsided into her reserve, but--he fancied--not altogether willingly.
Was it, then, possible that he had misjudged her?
”You've friends in London, no doubt?” he ventured.
”No--none.”
”But--”
”I shall manage very well. I shan't be there more than a day or two--till the next steamer sails.”
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