Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/147

Rh “She’d ’a loved me better,” he muttered, and turned to his milking. I left him and went to talk to his father. When the latter’s four beasts were finished, George’s light still shone in the other shed.

I went and found him at the fifth, the last cow. When at length he had finished he put down his pail, and going over to poor Julia, stood scratching her back, and her poll, and her nose, looking into her big, startled eye and murmuring. She was afraid; she jerked her head, giving him a good blow on the cheek with her horn.

“You can’t understand them,” he said sadly, rubbing his face, and looking at me with his dark, serious eyes.

“I never knew I couldn’t understand them. I never thought about it—till——. But you know, Cyril, she led me on.” I laughed at his rueful appearance.