Her limp arms seemed to answer:  they asked, as plainly as words, “What is there to say?”

“I don’t know. . . .  Somewhere out of this infernal light.  I want to think.  There must be somewhere, away from this light . . .”  He broke off.  “At home, now, I can think.  I am always thinking at home.”

“At home . . .” the woman echoed.

“And you must think too?”

“Always:  everywhere.”

“Ah!” he ran on, as one talking against time:  “but what do you suppose I think about, nine times out of ten?  Why”—­and he uttered it with an air of foolish triumph—­“of the chances that we might meet . . . and what would happen.  Have you ever thought of that?”

“Always:  everywhere . . . of that . . . and the children.”

“Grace looks after them.”

“I know.  I get word.  She is kind.”

“You think of them?”

“Don’t, Willy!”

He harked back.  “Do you know, whenever I’ve thought of it . . . the chance of our meeting . . .  I’ve wondered what I should say.  Hundreds and hundreds of times I’ve made up my mind what to say.  Why, only just now—­I’ve come from the theatre:  I still go to the theatre sometimes; it’s a splendid thing to distract your thoughts:  takes you out of yourself—­Frou—­Frou, it was . . . the finest play in the world . . . next to East Lynne.  It made me cry, to-night, and the people in the pit stared at me.  But one mustn’t be ashamed of a little honest emotion, before strangers.  And when a thing comes home to a man . . .  So you’ve thought of it too—­the chance of our running against one another?”

“Every day and all the day long I’ve gone fearing it:  especially in
March and September, when I knew you’d be up in town buying for the
season.  All the day long I’ve gone watching the street ahead of me . . . watching in fear of you. . . .”

“But I never guessed it would happen like this.”  He stared up irritably, as though the lamp were to blame for upsetting his calculations.  The woman followed his eyes.

“Yes . . . the lamp,” she assented.  “Something held my face up to it, just now, when I wanted to hide.  It’s like as if our souls were naked under it, and there is nothing to say.”

“Eh? but there is.  I tell you I’ve thought it out so often!  I’ve thought it all out, or almost all; and that can’t mean nothing.”  He cleared his throat.  “I’ve made allowances, too—­” he began magnanimously.

But for the moment she was not listening.  “Yes, yes . . .”  She had turned her face aside and was gazing out into the darkness.  “Look at the gas-jets, Willy—­in the fog.  What do they remind you of?  That Christmas-tree . . . after Dick was born. . . .  Don’t you remember how he mistook the oranges on it for lanterns and wanted to blow them out . . . how he kicked to get at them . . .”