"Why don't we both sit down?" she offered, when she had reached him. She seated herself on the concrete step above the breakwater and waited, while he gazed at her uncertainly. He felt indefinitely that he ought to go away; then, in spite of himself, he sat down beside her. He did not tell himself consciously that there was tension in her which she was trying to hide, but he was apprehensive.
"This is a nice place to come," she said.
"Yes'm," he replied.
"You come here almost every day, don't you?"
"Yes'm."
"Is that because you find it pleasanter here than at home?"
His pulse quickened. "Yes'm."
"Where is your home?" she asked.
He looked at her with calculated innocence; the uneasiness with which she had impressed him increased. "What'm?" he asked.
"Where do you live?"
Anybody, he understood, might ask that question, but the feeling she gave him was that she
