“We’re going to draw him,” said Gudrun.
“Draw him and quarter him and dish him up,” he said, being purposely fatuous.
“Oh no,” cried Winifred with emphasis, chuckling.
Gudrun detected the tang of mockery in him, and she looked up and smiled into his face. He felt his nerves caressed. Their eyes met in knowledge.
“How do you like Shortlands?” he asked.
“Oh, very much,” she said, with nonchalance.
“Glad you do. Have you noticed these flowers?”
He led her along the path. She followed intently. Winifred came, and the governess lingered in the rear. They stopped before some veined salpiglossis flowers.
“Aren’t they wonderful?” she cried, looking at them absorbedly. Strange how her reverential, almost ecstatic admiration of the flowers caressed his nerves. She stooped down, and touched the trumpets, with infinitely fine and delicate-touching finger-tips. It filled him with ease to see her. When she rose, her eyes, hot with the beauty of the flowers, looked into his.
“What are they?” she asked.