Boy felt herself snubbed, and was nettled accordingly.
"I'm going home by the wood," she said.
"I'll come with you," said the artist.
The two moved away down the hill together toward the wood that thrust like a spear into the heart of the Paddock Close.
Silver watched them with steady eyes. As usual he had been left. That swift and slimy artist-chap had chipped in while he was thinking what he should do.
Silver hated artists—not as the result of experience, for he had never met one in the flesh before, but from instinct, conviction, and knowledge of the race acquired from books. Artists and poets: they were all alike—dirty beggars, all manners and no morals, who could talk the hind-leg off a she-ass.
And Silver, being dumb himself and very human, hated men who were articulate.
He watched the pair walking away from him down the hillside. An ill-matched couple they seemed to him: the slight, strenuous girl, her plait of hair like a spear of gold between her shoulders, her slim black legs, and air of a cold flame; and that loose, fat thing who gave the young man the impression of a suet pudding that had taken to drink.
The beast seemed disgustingly fatherly, too, rubbing shoulders with the girl, and fawning on her.
Silver sat down on a log and took out the cigarette-case, which was his habitual comforter.