"Let me at least go with you." He went with her, and they said nothing till they reached the gate. It was open, and they looked down the road which was darkened over with long bosky shadows.
"Must you go straight home?" Acton asked.
But she made no answer. She said, after a moment, "Why have you not been to see me?" He said nothing, and then she went on, "Why don't you answer me?"
"I am trying to invent an answer," Acton confessed.
"Have you none ready?"
"None that I can tell you," he said. "But let me walk with you now."
"You may do as you like."
She moved slowly along the road, and Acton went with her.
Presently he said, "If I had done as I liked I would have come to see you several times."
"Is that invented?" asked Eugenia.
"No, that is natural. I stayed away because"--
"Ah, here comes the reason, then!"
"Because I wanted to think about you."
"Because you wanted to lie down!" said the Baroness.
"I have seen you lie down--almost--in my drawing-room."
Acton stopped in the road, with a movement which seemed to beg her to linger a little. She paused, and he looked at her awhile; he thought her very charming. "You are jesting," he said;
"but if you are really going away it is very serious."
"If I stay," and she gave a little laugh, "it is more serious still!"
"When shall you go?"
"As soon as possible."
"And why?"
"Why should I stay?"
"Because we all admire you so."
"That is not a reason. I am admired also in Europe."
And she began to walk homeward again.
"What could I say to keep you?" asked Acton. He wanted to keep her, and it was a fact that he had been thinking of her for a week.
He was in love with her now; he was conscious of that, or he thought he was; and the only question with him was whether he could trust her.
"What you can say to keep me?" she repeated. "As I want very much to go it is not in my interest to tell you.
Besides, I can't imagine."