Page:Crawford - Love in idleness.djvu/140

 one never feels alone when one gets where things grow—does one?"

"I don't mind being alone when I can't be—I mean—" Lawrence did not finish his sentence, but bent down and picked up a twig from the ground. "Isn't it funny!" he exclaimed, twisting it in his hands. "All the bark's loose, and turns round."

"Of course—it's an old twig, and it's wet. When don't you mind being alone? You were saying something—'when you couldn't be with'—something, or somebody."

"Oh—you know! What's the use of my saying it?" Lawrence kept his eye on the twig.

"I don't know, and if I want you to say anything, that's the use," answered Fanny, whose prose style, so to say, was direct if it was anything.

"Yes—but you see—I didn't mean anything in particular." He broke the twig in two and tossed it over the path into the brook below.

Fanny changed her position a little, leaning forward and clasping her gloved hands round her knees.