She had never before seen him read with so conspicuous an
air of warding off interruption. What could he be thinking of? Why should
he be afraid to speak? Or was it her answer that he dreaded?
The train paused for the passing of an express, and he put down his book
and leaned out of the window. Presently he turned to her with a smile.
"There's a jolly old villa out here," he said.
His easy tone relieved her, and she smiled back at him as she crossed over
to his corner.
Beyond the embankment, through the opening in a mossy wall, she caught
sight of the villa, with its broken balustrades, its stagnant fountains,
and the stone satyr closing the perspective of a dusky grass-walk.
"How should you like to live there?" he asked as the train moved on.
"There?"
"In some such place, I mean. One might do worse, don't you think so? There
must be at least two centuries of solitude under those yew-trees.
Shouldn't you like it?"
"I--I don't know," she faltered. She knew now that he meant to speak.
He lit another cigarette. "We shall have to live somewhere, you know," he
said as he bent above the match.
Lydia tried to speak carelessly. "_Je n'en vois pas la necessite!_ Why not
live everywhere, as we have been doing?"
"But we can't travel forever, can we?"
"Oh, forever's a long word," she objected, picking up the review he had
thrown aside.
"For the rest of our lives then," he said, moving nearer.
She made a slight gesture which caused his hand to slip from hers.
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