"Then you might at least turn your trousers up," she added, as I made no reply; and I stooped and did so. We resumed our walk, stopped at the Horse Guards, and made our way slowly towards the Mall.
"Are you warm?" I asked some minutes later.
"Quite," she replied; and the silence fell on us again.
At last, somewhere near the spot where the Artillery Memorial now is, she did speak. It was a curious question she put, her fingers working slightly on my sleeve as she did so. During the past minutes a sense--I hardly know how to describe it except as a sense of protection--had begun to grow on me, the odd thing being that it was not I who protected her, but she me. Perhaps the perfect calm with which she had claimed my arm had begun it; it certainly now informed the very curious question she suddenly put.
You may imagine I was a little surprised. Quite apart from the nameless reassurance that thrilled in her tone, some queer gage of fidelity, though fidelity to what I could not make out, the question itself was a long way out of the ordinary. Was I happy! Ought I not, from any point of view she could possibly have, to be happy? Newly married--sure of myself--wearing clothes the luxury of which was only an anticipation--fresh from a conference with the great ones of the land (though to be sure she could hardly know all this)--what else should I be but happy? It looked as if for some reason or other she had supposed I would _not_ be happy.... I spoke slowly.
"I wish you would tell me," I said, "what makes you ask that?"
She looked straight before her through the rain. "Why I ask that? It's just that that I wanted to ask you," she replied.
"It's just that that you----" I repeated after her, stopping, however, half-way.
Yet I felt somehow that that she had just uttered was no banal compliment. She was not thinking of the kind of felicitation that had been implied when she had sent Evie the teacloth. She had not asked after Evie, and was not, I knew already, thinking of Evie. And again I had that odd sense that she was protecting me, and would continue to protect me.
"Well, it's an odd question--the whole thing's odd, of course--but since you ask, I don't mind telling you. I am happy."