She turned
away from him as if she wished to leave him, and indeed were about to
attempt to do so. She didn't desire to look at him now, or even to have
much more conversation with him. "Something," I say, made her feel so,
but it was partly his curious manner--so serene and explicit, as if he
knew the whole thing to an absolute certainty--which partly scared her
and partly made her feel angry. She began to move along the path to one
of the gates, as if it were settled that they should immediately leave
the place. He laid it all out so clearly; if he had had a revelation he
couldn't speak otherwise. That description of herself as something
different from what she was trying to be, the charge of want of reality,
made her heart beat with pain; she was sure, at any rate, it was her
real self that was there with him now, where she oughtn't to be. In a
moment he was at her side again, going with her; and as they walked it
came over her that some of the things he had said to her were far beyond
what Olive could have imagined as the very worst possible. What would be
her state now, poor forsaken friend, if some of them had been borne to
her in the voices of the air? Verena had been affected by her
companion's speech (his manner had changed so; it seemed to express
something quite different) in a way that pushed her to throw up the
discussion and determine that as soon as they should get out of the park
she would go off by herself; but she still had her wits about her
sufficiently to think it important she should give no sign of
discomposure, of confessing that she was driven from the field.
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