Fortunately he did not look up, for she was watching the waving boughs. "Yes," she replied, hastily returning to the book. "You do your part and I'll do mine."
He read a few lines in an absent-minded sing-song, then interrupted himself once more: "Did you ever smell anything like that breeze?"
"Never. 'Bellum etiam pro caede bovum'—go on—I'm listening—or trying to."
He read:
"'But know that ere your promised walls you build,
My curse shall severely be fulfilled.
Fierce famine is your lot—for this misdeed,
Reduced to grind the plates on which you feed.'"
He glanced at her. She was leaning on her elbow, obviously weaving day-dreams round those boughs as they trembled with the ecstasy of spring.
"You are happy to-day?" he said.
"Yes—happier than I have been for a year." She smiled mysteriously. "I've had good news." She turned abruptly, looked him in the eyes with that frank, clear expression—his favorite among his memory-pictures of her had it. "There's one thing that worries me—it's never off my mind longer than a few minutes. And when I'm blue, as I usually am on rainy days, it makes me—horribly uncomfortable. I've often almost asked your advice about it."
"If you'd be sorry afterward that you told me," said he, "I hope you won't. But if I can help you, you know how glad I'd be."
"It's no use to tell Olivia," Pauline went on. "She's bitterly prejudiced. But ever since the first month I knew you, I felt that I could trust you, that you were a real friend. And you're so fair in judging people and things."