Page:The Lost Girl.djvu/84

He steered off, turned downhill through the common gar- dens, and proposed to take her the not-very-original walk up Flint's Lane, and along the railway line-the colliery railway, that is-then back up the Marlpool Road: a sort of circle. She agreed.

They did not find a great deal to talk about. She questioned him about his plans, and about the Cape. But save for bare outlines, which he gave readily enough, he was rather close.

"What do you do on Sunday nights as a rule?" he asked her.

"Oh, I have a walk with Lucy Grainger-or I go down to Hallam's or go home,” she answered.

"You don't go walks with the fellows, then ?”

"Father would never have it," she replied.

"What will he say now?" he asked, with self-satisfaction.

"Goodness knows!" she laughed.

" Goodness usually does," he answered archly.

When they came to the rather stumbly railway, he said:

"Won't you take my arm?"-offering her the said member.

"Oh, I'm all right," she said. " Thanks."

"Go on," he said, pressing a little nearer to her, and offering his arm. "There's nothing against it, is there?"

"Oh, it's not that," she said.

And feeling in a false position, she took his arm, rather unwillingly. He drew a little nearer to her, and walked with a slight prance.

"We get on better, don't we?" he said, giving her hand the tiniest squeeze with his arm against his side.

"Much!" she replied, with a laugh.

Then he lowered his voice oddly.

"It's many a day since I was on this railroad," he said.

"Is this one of your old walks?" she asked, malicious. Yes, I've been it once or twice-with girls that are all married now."

"Didn't you want to marry?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know. I may have done. But it never came off, somehow. I've sometimes thought it never would come off."

"Why?"

"I don't know, exactly. It didn't seem to, you know. Perhaps neither of us was properly inclined."