The idea was so spontaneous that it seemed to shape itself of its own accord before his eyes.

It was then that he turned round and made use of his old, instinctive phrase: "Well, Mary-- ?" As it presented itself to him at first, the idea was so new and interesting that he was half inclined to address it, without more ado, to Mary herself.

His natural instinct to divide his thoughts carefully into two different classes before he expressed them to her prevailed.
But as he watched her looking out of the window and describing the old lady, the woman with the perambulator, the bailiff and the dissenting minister, his eyes filled involuntarily with tears.

He would have liked to lay his head on her shoulder and sob, while she parted his hair with her fingers and soothed him and said: "There, there.

Don't cry! Tell me why you're crying--"; and they would clasp each other tight, and her arms would hold him like his mother's.
He felt that he was very lonely, and that he was afraid of the other people in the room.
"How damnable this all is!" he exclaimed abruptly.
"What are you talking about ?" she replied, rather vaguely, still looking out of the window.
He resented this divided attention more than, perhaps, he knew, and he thought how Mary would soon be on her way to America.
"Mary," he said, "I want to talk to you.