on springs. As before, she was indifferently dressed; a small, close
hat came down over her face and hid her forehead; her skirt seemed
shrunken, and hung limp about her ankles, accentuating the
straightness of her figure. But below the brim of the hat her eyes
were as bright as ever, and took note of all that happened. On seeing
Maurice, she professed to remember him "perfectly," beginning to speak
before she had quite come up to him.

The following day they met once more at the same place. This time, she
raised her eyebrows.

"You here again?" she said.

She disappeared inside the building; but a few minutes later returned,
and said she was going for a walk: would he come, too?

He assented, with grateful surprise, and they set off together in the
direction of the woods, as briskly as though they were on an errand.
But when they had crossed the suspension-bridge and reached the
quieter paths that ran through the NONNE, they simultaneously
slackened their pace. The luxuriant undergrowth of shrub, which filled
in, like lacework, the spaces between the tree-trunks, was sprinkled
with its first dots and pricks of green, and the afternoon was
pleasant for walking--sunless and still, and just a little fragrantly
damp from all the rife budding and sprouting. It was a day to further
a friendship more effectually than half a dozen brighter ones; a day
on which to speak out thoughts which a June sky, the indiscreet
playing of full sunlight, even the rustling of the breeze in the
leaves might scare, like fish, from the surface.