“When are you going to see her again?” Albert asked. For a long time there was no answer.
“When is it, boy?” persisted the softened voice of the corporal.
“Tomorrow,” confessed Joe.
“Then let me go,” said Albert. “Let me go, will you?”
The morrow was Sunday, a sunny day, but a cold evening. The sky was grey, the new foliage very green, but the air was chill and depressing. Albert walked briskly down the white road towards Beeley. He crossed a larch plantation, and followed a narrow by-road, where blue speedwell flowers fell from the banks into the dust. He walked swinging his cane, with mixed sensations. Then having gone a certain length, he turned and began to walk in the opposite direction.
So he saw a young woman approaching him. She was wearing a wide hat of grey straw, and a loose, swinging dress of nigger-grey velvet. She walked with slow inevitability. Albert faltered a little as he approached her. Then he saluted her, and his roguish, slightly withered skin flushed. She was staring straight into his face.
He fell in by her side, saying impudently:
“Not so nice for a walk as it was, is it?”
She only stared at him. He looked back at her.
“You’ve seen me before, you know,” he said, grinning slightly. “Perhaps you never noticed me. Oh, I’m quite nice looking, in a quiet way, you know. What—?”