"He would not have taken any notice," she went on steadily. "And what
could I have done then? I could not have started quarrelling with
him--could I? I hadn't enough energy to get angry. I felt very tired
suddenly. I just stumbled on straight along the road. Captain Anthony
told me that the family--some relations of his mother--he used to know in
Liverpool was broken up now, and he had never made any friends since. All
gone their different ways. All the girls married. Nice girls they were
and very friendly to him when he was but little more than a boy. He
repeated: 'Very nice, cheery, clever girls.' I sat down on a bank
against a hedge and began to cry."
"You must have astonished him not a little," I observed.
Anthony, it seems, remained on the road looking down at her. He did not
offer to approach her, neither did he make any other movement or gesture.
Flora de Barral told me all this. She could see him through her tears,
blurred to a mere shadow on the white road, and then again becoming more
distinct, but always absolutely still and as if lost in thought before a
strange phenomenon which demanded the closest possible attention.
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