Page:The Relentless City.djvu/228

218 was at this moment very present to him—more bitter, perhaps, than it had ever been. For he regretted now, not that which was past, but its absence from the present; and the curious persistence of Amelie rather vexed him.

he said, with an unconscious touch of impatience in his voice.

Amelie noticed the impatience of which he was unconscious.

she asked, with a wonderful wistfulness in her voice.

He threw the grass spearwise down the wind.

he said.

She picked up her sketching things in silence, washed out her brushes, and closed her sketch-book.

she said briskly.

said he.

But for both of them the huge blue of the day was flecked with a little cloud.

After lunch Amelie had a few calls to make, and some little business to transact in the village, and Bertie, who sturdily refused to accompany her, ordered his horse, and