“No,” he answered, surprised out of his silence. “But didn’t you have any lunch?”
“I’m saving myself from my lunches to buy me a red feather on my new spring hat.”
He looked at Sosheh curiously, and noticed for the first time the pinched look of the pale young face.
“Red over that olive paleness!” he mused. “How bright and singing that colour would be!”
Moved by an impulse of friendliness, he pushed an apple towards her.
“Take it,” he said. “I had one for my lunch already.”
He watched her with smiling interest as she bit hungrily into the juicy fruit.
“Will your feather be as red as this apple?” he asked.
“Ach!” she said, with her mouth full. “If you could only give a look how that feather is to me becoming! The redness waves over my black hair like waves from red wine!”
“Why, that girl is a poet!” he thought, thrilled by the way her mind leaped in her dumb yearning for beauty.