he did so, he
saw how easy it was to explain things to her. She would either accept
his suggestion, or she would not: but at least she would waste no time
in protestations and objections, or any vain sacrifice to the idols of
conformity. The conviction that one could, on any given point, almost
predicate this of her, gave him the sense of having advanced far enough
in her intimacy to urge his arguments against a hasty pursuit of her
friends.

Yes, it would certainly be foolish--she at once agreed--in the case
of such dear indefinite angels as the Farlows, to dash off after them
without more positive proof that they were established at Joigny, and
so established that they could take her in. She owned it was but too
probable that they had gone there to "cut down", and might be doing so
in quarters too contracted to receive her; and it would be unfair, on
that chance, to impose herself on them unannounced. The simplest way of
getting farther light on the question would be to go back to the rue de
la Chaise, where, at that more conversable hour, the concierge might be
less chary of detail; and she could decide on her next step in the light
of such facts as he imparted.

Point by point, she fell in with the suggestion, recognizing, in the
light of their unexplained flight, that the Farlows might indeed be in a
situation on which one could not too rashly intrude. Her concern for her
friends seemed to have effaced all thought of herself, and this little
indication of character gave Darrow a quite disproportionate pleasure.
She agreed that it would be well to go at once to the rue de la Chaise,
but met his proposal that they should drive by the declaration that it
was a "waste" not to walk in Paris; so they set off on foot through the
cheerful tumult of the streets.

The walk was long enough for him to learn many things about her. The
storm of the previous night had cleared the air, and Paris shone in
morning beauty under a sky that was all broad wet washes of white and
blue; but Darrow again noticed that her visual sensitiveness was less
keen than her feeling for what he was sure the good Farlows--whom he
already seemed to know--would have called "the human interest." She
seemed hardly conscious of sensations of form and colour, or of any
imaginative suggestion, and the spectacle before them--always, in
its scenic splendour, so moving to her companion--broke up, under her
scrutiny, into a thousand minor points: the things