The Immortal Moment Part 6

"Difficult?"

"To get on with?"

"Not in the least. Possibly, if I may say so, a little difficult to know."

She smiled. "I don't usually strike people in that light."

"Well, I think I'm afraid of boring you."

"You couldn't if you tried from now to midnight."

"How do you know what I mightn't do?"

"That's it. I don't know. I never _should_ know. It's only the people I'm sure of that bore me. Don't they you?"

He laughed uneasily.

"The people," she went on, "who are sure of _me_; who think I'm so easy to know. They don't know me, and they don't know that I know them. And they're the only people I've ever, ever met. I can tell what they're going to say before they've said it. It's always the same thing.

It's--if you like--the inevitable thing. If you can't have anything but the same thing, at least you like it put a little differently. You'd think, among them all, they might find it easy to put it a little differently sometimes; but they never do; and it's the brutal monotony of it that I cannot stand."

"I suppose," said Lucy, "people _are_ monotonous."

"They don't know," said she, evidently ignoring his statement as inadequate, "they don't know how sick I am of it--how insufferably it bores me."

"Ah! there you see--that's what _I'm_ afraid of."

"What?"

"Of saying the wrong thing--the--the same thing."

"That's it. You'd say it differently, and it wouldn't be the same thing at all. And what's more, I should never know whether you were going to say it or not."

"There's one thing I'd like to say to you if I knew how--if I knew how you'd take it. You see, though I think I know you----" he hesitated.

"You don't really? You don't know who I am? Or where I come from? Or where I'm going to? I don't know myself."

"I know," said Lucy, "as much as I've any right to. But unluckily the thing I want to know----"

"Is what you haven't any right to?"

"I'm afraid I haven't. The thing I want to know is simply whether I can help you in any way."

She smiled. "Ah," said she, "you _have_ said it."

"Haven't I said it differently?"

"I'm not sure. You looked different when you said it; that's something."

"I know I've no right to say it at all. What I mean is that if I could do anything for you without boring you, without forcing myself on your acquaintance, I'd be most awfully glad. You know you needn't recognise me afterward unless you like. Have I put it differently now?"

"Yes; I don't think I've ever heard it put quite that way before."

There was a long pause in which Lucy vainly sought for illumination.

"No," said Mrs. Tailleur, as if to herself; "I should never know what you were going to say or do next."

"Wouldn't you?"

"No; I didn't know just now whether you were going to speak to me or not. When I said I wanted to walk I didn't know whether you'd come with me or not."

"I came."

"You came; but when I go----"

"You're not going?"

"Yes; to-morrow, perhaps, or the next day. When I go I shall give you my address and ask you to come and see me; but I shan't know whether you'll come."

"Of course I'll come."

"There's no 'of course' about you; that's the charm of it. I shan't know until you're actually there."

"I shall be there all right."

"What? You'll come?"

"Yes; and I'll bring my sister."

"Your sister?" She drew back slightly. "Turn round, please--this way--and let me look at you."

He turned, laughing. Her eyes searched his face.

"Yes; you meant that. Why do you want to bring your sister?"

"Because I want you to know her."

"Are you sure--quite--quite sure--you want her to know me?"

"Quite--quite sure. If you don't mind--if she won't bore you."

"Oh, she won't bore me."

"You're not afraid of that monotony?"

She turned and looked long at him. "You are very like your sister," she said.

"Am I? How? In what way?"

"In the way we've been talking about. I suppose you know how remarkable you are?"