turned Lettice Hollidew stood with her tiresome
smile. "I come out here every summer," she volunteered,
sinking upon a step, "and spend two weeks.
I was born here you see, and," she added in a stiller
voice, "my mother died here. Father Merlier calls
it my yearly retreat."

"I'd be pleased if you'd take the fish," he remarked;
"I guess I'd better be moving -- I've got to
see the priest."

"Why, you haven't stopped a minute," she protested,
"not long enough to smoke one of your little
cigarettes. Visitors are too scarce here to let
them go off like that."

At the implied suggestion he half-mechanically
rolled a cigarette. The chair he found was comfortable;
he was very weary. He sat smoking and
indifferently studying Lettice Hollidew. She was,
tonight, prettier than he had remembered her. She
was telling him, in a voice that rippled cool and low
like the stream, of Mrs. Caley's indisposition. Her
face, now turned toward the fields, was dipped in the
dreaming radiance; now it was blurred, vaguely appealing,
disturbing. Her soft youth was creamy,
distilling an essence, a fragrance, like a flower; it was
one with the immaculate flood of light bathing the
world in virginal beauty.

A new interest stirred within him, a satisfaction
grew from her palpable liking for him, and was re-

[[118]]

p117 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p118w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p119

v?