She had hesitated because, though it saved her a mile, it was a cut that ran across the Priory woods, driving a broad grass-way through the heart of them, and rounding at one point the Priory garden itself. And yet—it was ridiculous to be late for tea, to involve oneself with an irritable aunt, just because her nearest way home skirted Justin’s property.... Would Justin be wandering in damp woods at this time o’ day—at his tea-time o’ day?... She knew Justin.... Besides, what should he do in the woods? He didn’t collect birds’ eggs any more....
She turned into the shining chestnut thickets, for she knew the fox-ways of the undergrowth, and emerged again, breathless, briar-whipped, into the green, central glade, where the grass was twenty feet wide and the white violets grew. This was her undoing. Laura could never resist flowers. If Laura were being ferried over to hell she would still have plunged to the elbow in the Styx, I think, after its blotched lilies—and these were violets, English and very sweet. And they were the first of the year. Do you think there is any one too old and too sad to pick white violets when they get the chance?
Laura was sad enough, but she was only twenty. Forgetting her hurry, she stooped down and began picking violets.
There were so many of them that the ground was soon covered with tiny short-stalked bunches, tied up with Aunt Adela’s khaki knitting wool.
The soft spring air was like new milk after the close, people room she had left. The scent of the violets pleased her. Each flower as she picked it sent its ghost, like a little white thought, into her mind, to soothe and heal and sweeten it. She was so blessedly absorbed, and the grass was so thick and mossy, that she heard nothing, neither footsteps nor creak of boots, till a voice, a familiar voice, spoke above her.
“Why, Laura!” said the voice.
She was on her feet in an instant, but she was badly startled. For, after all her reckonings, it was Justin—Justin, taking like herself his short cut through the woods to his tea—Justin, whom she had not seen for nearly a year—Justin, who was never going to speak to her again.
She gave him a wavering, frightened smile—a smile that deprecated its own existence, that assured him that it held no graceless hint of welcome or intimacy, that it continued merely as the only salutation that the lips on which it trembled could at the moment attempt. And with that faded again and left a white face whiter.
“Why, Laura!” repeated the miraculous Justin, in the kind, solemn voice that had not altered for all her wickedness, for all the war.
She found hurried words in which to answer, excusing herself when there was no need.