Her presence
enabled me to return some of the hospitality which I had
received from the La Forces, and brought us still nearer
together.
I had never yet reminded them of our previous
meeting. One evening, however, the talk turned upon
clairvoyance, and Mrs. La Force was expressing the utmost
disbelief in it. I borrowed her ring, and holding it to
my forehead, I pretended to be peering into her past.
"I see you in a railway carriage," said I. "You are
wearing a red feather in your bonnet. Miss La Force is
dressed in something dark. There is a young man there.
He is rude enough to address your daughter as Winnie
before he has ever been----"
"Oh, mother," she cried, "of course it is he! The
face haunted me, and I could not think where we had met
it."
Well, there are some things that we don't talk about
to another man, even when we know each other as well as
I know you. Why should we, when that which is most
engrossing to us consists in those gradual shades of
advance from friendship to intimacy, and from intimacy to
something more sacred still, which can scarcely be
written at all, far less made interesting to another?
The time came at last when they were to leave
Birchespool, and my mother and I went round the night
before to say goodbye. Winnie and I were thrown together
for an instant.
"When will you come back to Birchespool?" I asked.
"Mother does not know.
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