Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/165

 was following him, in order that he might give her a lift. But he did not see her, and waited a pretty long time in vain expectation of her.

Otherwise no signs of vexation were visible in him, perhaps he had slept or driven off his annoyance of yesterday.

They greeted one another, and when Malka had produced the dinner from her basket—“I am just going to have a look at the water for a minute,” said she, and away she went.

Here it appeared to Poldik as if he had already dined. Whether he ate or not he himself scarcely knew, but he soon got himself and his horses under weigh without waiting until they had satisfied their hunger, threw the basket with the fragments of his meal into the cart, drove off to the beach for sand, and asked half mechanically “Where is she.”

“Ask Francis when he returns with her,” said one of the wherrymen who was loading his cart with sand.

Poldik asked no more nor said another word, but as he was driving off he put Malka’s basket with the plates and knives and spoons on to a boat which was loaded with sand, and said generally to those on board “When Malka returns tell her I shall not require dinner to-morrow.”

This speech seemed to the sandmen and wherry-men somewhat too serious to be considered a mere