Marcher could only feel he ought to have rendered her some
service--saved her from a capsized boat in the bay or at least
recovered her dressing-bag, filched from her cab in the streets of
Naples by a lazzarone with a stiletto. Or it would have been nice
if he could have been taken with fever all alone at his hotel, and
she could have come to look after him, to write to his people, to
drive him out in convalescence. THEN they would be in possession
of the something or other that their actual show seemed to lack.
It yet somehow presented itself, this show, as too good to be
spoiled; so that they were reduced for a few minutes more to
wondering a little helplessly why--since they seemed to know a
certain number of the same people--their reunion had been so long
averted. They didn't use that name for it, but their delay from
minute to minute to join the others was a kind of confession that
they didn't quite want it to be a failure. Their attempted
supposition of reasons for their not having met but showed how
little they knew of each other. There came in fact a moment when
Marcher felt a positive pang.
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