I found myself prompt. "She's NOT too ill to travel:
she only might have become so if she had stayed.
This was just the moment to seize. The journey will dissipate
the influence"--oh, I was grand!--"and carry it off."
"I see, I see"--Miles, for that matter, was grand, too. He settled
to his repast with the charming little "table manner" that, from the day
of his arrival, had relieved me of all grossness of admonition.
Whatever he had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly feeding.
He was irreproachable, as always, today; but he was unmistakably
more conscious. He was discernibly trying to take for granted
more things than he found, without assistance, quite easy;
and he dropped into peaceful silence while he felt his situation.
Our meal was of the briefest--mine a vain pretense, and I had the things
immediately removed. While this was done Miles stood again with his
hands in his little pockets and his back to me--stood and looked
out of the wide window through which, that other day, I had seen
what pulled me up. We continued silent while the maid was with us--
as silent, it whimsically occurred to me, as some young couple who,
on their wedding journey, at the inn, feel shy in the presence
of the waiter. He turned round only when the waiter had left us.
"Well--so we're alone!"
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