Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/261

Rh and trailed towards him. He stood awkwardly awaiting her, conscious of the clownishness of his appearance. She held out her hand with something of a grand air:

“See,” she said, “I have come.”

“Yes—I thought you wouldn’t—perhaps”—he looked at her, and suddenly gained courage:

“You have been putting white on—you, you do look nice—though not like——”

“What?—Who else?”

“Nobody else—only I—well I’d—I’d thought about it different—like some pictures.”

She smiled with a gentle radiance, and asked indulgently, “And how was I different?”

“Not all that soft stuff—plainer.”

“But don’t I look very nice with all this soft stuff, as you call it?”—and she shook the silk away from her smiles.

“Oh, yes—better than those naked lines.”

“You are quaint to-night—what did you want me for—to say good-bye?”

“Good-bye?”

“Yes—you’re going away, Cyril tells me. I’m very sorry—fancy horrid strangers at the Mill! But then I shall be gone away soon, too. We are all going you see, now we’ve grown up,”—she kept hold of my arm.

“Yes.”

“And where will you go—Canada? You’ll settle there and be quite a patriarch, won’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You are not really sorry to go, are you?”

“No, I’m glad.”