Page:The Eleventh Virgin.pdf/33

THE ELEVENTH VIRGIN patch of dirt which had settled there, a dandelion was growing, smiling up at the sky lonesomely. Its gay color stabbed the air. Every once in a while, a little wave leaped and sparkled with another splash of color which greeted the flower. A breeze sprang up as the sun settled on the sky line, and stirred the wisps of hair around their hot faces. It was like a caress and June thought of Mr. Armand’s long fingers.

“Why don’t you say something?” Adele burst in on her thoughts. “You haven’t spoken to me for days, and you’ve got that silent look I don’t like. What are you thinking about?”

“I was thinking of the hate we have inside of us,” June lied. “You hate everything and so do I. I hate the springtime. It’s so restless and uncomfortable. You never want to do what you ought to be doing. You can’t sit still and read and if you have to dust a room or wash dishes you have an awful ache in your heart. I tell you I hate it.”

But really June didn’t hate it. She loved to be bitten by fierce emotion. This steady restlessness had suddenly become a torment but she would not have given it up now that she knew what it was.

They sat there for a long time, Adele pulling out a tattered copy of “Jane Eyre” from the blouse of her dress and devouring it with an absorbed expression on her lean little face.

June stretched out on the rocks and let the wind