Page:The Yellow Book - 04.djvu/295

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By Evelyn Sharp
263

slopes and hollows without a peak or a suggestion of grandeur or barrenness, a hill like a hundred other hills, with a soft fresh breeze that lingered over it without ruffling its surface.

"How did you know it was me?" she said when he called out to her.

"I always know," he answered in a tone which sounded as though he had not wasted his time during the past month.

"Oh," she said as their hands met, "I came up to see the sunset, you know."

"So did I—at least," he said, and smiled.

"The air is very pleasant up here; you can see three counties—I mean one can—I'm so sorry," she stammered.

"It's a favourite walk of mine," he went on as they strolled through the bracken; "I like the placid conventionality of the place."

"That's just what I don't like," she burst out impatiently; "I would much rather have boulders, and miles of heather, and no haystacks, or cornfields, or chimneys."

"The East Coast for instance?" he suggested, and she subsided into a careful study of the three counties.

"Why do you look at me as though you could see my face?" she asked him presently.

"I like to think I can, for the sake of the old times," he answered lightly.

"Oh, those old times!" she cried; "how fond you are of dragging them up. Why can't you leave them alone?"

"Yes, I suppose it is rather invidious," he said solemnly, "now that they are gone."

"Yes, now that they are gone," she echoed, also solemnly.

He laughed outright.

"What a comedy it all is! Do you remember how we lived