"Ah, now you've spoilt it," she exclaimed. But Margaret did not pause a moment to regret the ruffling of that sheeted expanse and they walked on silently, watching the toes of their boots juggle with the snow.
"It generally is a pity," said Guy after a while.
"What?"
"Impressing one's existence on so lovely and inviolate a thing as this." He indicated the untrodden field in front of them.
"But look behind you," said Margaret. "Don't you think our footprints look very interesting?"
"Interesting, perhaps," Guy admitted. "Yet footprints in snow never seem to be going anywhere."
"Now I know quite well what you're doing," Margaret protested. "You're making that poor little wobbly track of ours try to bear all sorts of mysterious and symbolic intensities of meaning. Just because you're feeling annoyed with a sonnet, footprints in the snow mustn't lead anywhere. Why, Guy, if I told you what sentimental import my 'cello sometimes gives to a simple walk before lunch.... I mean of course when I've been playing badly."
She sighed, and Guy wondered if the violoncello had been used with as little reference as a sonnet to the real cause of the mood.
"Why did you sigh just now?" he asked after another minute or two of silent progress.
"I wonder whether I'll tell you. No, I don't think I will. And yet...."