Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/207

Rh young lady with the rose shears was respectably eliminating him from her universe. He felt his color deepen. Yet it was only by audacity, he knew, that he could win his point. And the vague but universal air of impoverishment which overhung the place breathed life into his newer boldness. He pushed open the gate and stepped through it.

"Could I sketch a corner of your garden?" he inquired with all the casualness at his command.

The face under the sunbonnet turned slowly in his direction. But the eyes were still austerely non-committal.

"Sir?"

In that short monosyllable he noticed many things. He noticed a certain sharp fastidiousness of tone which spoke of caste. He caught from it a note of warning mixed with a cool and condescending forbearance. But in it, most of all, he found a beauty of timbre, a full-throated English resonance which he had not expected to stumble across in that higher-voiced Canadian