It was a pretty sight, instinct with feminine charm, and struck gratefully on the man's senses. Katherine looked very fresh and delicate in her sprigged lilac blouse, plain serge skirt, and simple black straw hat, and the attitude in which she bent down to the chubby, tearful face under the white sun-bonnet was very graceful and womanly. She kissed the child and handed it to its nurse as Raine came up. She greeted him with a smile.
“Quite a catastrophe--but she will forget all about it in half an hour. It must be delightful to be a child.”
“If all hurts are so promptly and tenderly healed, I should think it must be,” said Raine.
“Thank you,” she said, with an upward glance; “that is a pretty compliment.” Raine bowed, laughed his acknowledgments, and with a word of request, sat down by her side.
“Yes, I suppose it is. It is so near the pension--and I love the open air.”
“So do I. That is another point of contact. We discovered a good many, if you remember, at Christmas. What have you been doing since then?”
“Forgetting a good many old lessons, and trying to teach myself a few new ones. Or, if you like, making bricks without straw--trying to live a life without incidents.”
“Which less epigrammatically means that you have had a dull, cheerless time. I am sorry. You have been here all the winter and spring?”
“In a happier place,” said Raine. “You don't seem made to lead this monotonous existence.”
“Oh! I suppose I am, since I am leading it. Human beings, like water, find their own level. The Pension Boccard seems to be mine.”
“You smile, as if you liked it,”, he said, rather puzzled.
“Perhaps not on the day of my coming, but afterwards, I wish you would.”
She flashed a glance at him, the lightning reconnoitre of woman ever on the defensive. But the sight of his strong, frank face and kind eyes reassured her. She was silent for a moment, dreaming a vivid day-dream. She was taking him at his word, crying with her face on his shoulder and his arm around her. It was infinite comfort. But she quickly roused herself.
“Don't you know your Burton? A kind man once pointed it out to me--'As much pity is to be taken of a woman weeping, as of a goose going barefoot.' It was the same that told me a woman cried to hide her feelings.”