Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/259

Rh “It’s a trouble you like well enough,” said mother.

“Oh, do I? such a bother!” and she ran upstairs.

The sun was red behind Highclose. I kneeled in the window seat and smiled at Fate and at people who imagine that strange states are near to the inner realities. The sun went straight down behind the cedar trees, deliberately and, it seemed as I watched, swiftly lowered itself behind the trees, behind the rim of the hill.

“I must go,” I said to myself, “and tell him she will not come.”

Yet I fidgeted about the room, loth to depart. Lettie came down, dressed in white—or cream—cut low round the neck. She looked very delightful and fresh again, with a sparkle of the afternoon’s excitement still.

“I’ll put some of these violets on me,” she said, glancing at herself in the mirror, and then taking the flowers from their water, she dried them, and fastened them among her lace.

“Don’t Lettie and I look nice to-night?” she said smiling, glancing from me to her reflection which was like a light in the dusky room.

“That reminds me,” I said, “George Saxton wanted to see you this evening.”

“What ever for?”

“I don’t know. They’ve got notice to leave their farm, and I think he feels a bit sentimental.”

“Oh, well—is he coming here?”

“He said would you go just a little way in the wood to meet him.”

“Did he! Oh, indeed! Well, of course I can’t.”