Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/80

68 song, and he had grown aware of the beauty of her face's oval—of the fine poise of her head—and of the grace of hands and arms.

"Aren't you tired?" he said. "Wouldn't you like to sit down and rest? There is a seat in the garden at the side of the house."

Again she hesitated. Then she turned towards the quarter indicated and disappeared round the laurel bushes.

He was alone in the house—his people and the servants were in the country; the woman who came to "do for him" had left for the night. He went into the dining-room, dark with mahogany and damask, found wine and cake in the sideboard cupboard, put them on a tray, and took them out through the garden door and round to the corner where, almost sheltered by laburnums and hawthorns from the view of the people next door, the singer and her guitar rested on the iron seat.

"I have brought you some wine—will you have it?"

Again that strange hesitation—then quite suddenly the girl put her hands up to her face and began to cry.