Page:Encounters (Bowen).djvu/126

 "I've met very few people who were worth listening to."

She raised her brows. Her shabby man was growing gallant.

"I am certain," she smiled, "that with your delicate perceptions of the romantic you would rather we remained incognito. Names and addresses are"

"Banality."

The leaves rustled and her muslins fluttered in a breath of warm wind. In silence they turned their faces out towards the distance.

"I love views," she said, "when there isn't anything to understand in them. There are no subtleties of emotion about June. She's so gloriously elemental. Not a month for self-justification, simply for self-abandonment."

He turned towards her quickly, his whole face flushed and lighted up for speech.

With a grind and screech of brakes a big car drew up under the lime-trees.

Marcia leaned over the verandah rail.

"John," she cried. "Oh, John!"

She reached out for her parasol and dived to gather up her sketching things.