“I don’t quite see why,” she said pleasantly; “but no doubt you are right. But has a cow died?”
“Of course not. Why should it?”
“They do, I suppose?”
“It’s the old man. He isn’t well, and he’s badgering me to go away, to Canada, and learn more about farming.”
“So you should.”
“Of course you’d say so.”
“Or do you think you can’t?”
He missed, or ignored, her point. “He’s ill. I don’t want to leave him”; and in a louder voice he added, almost shouted, “I don’t want to leave you!”
Her grey eyes were watching the swinging catkins, her hand, lifting the primroses, hid a smile. Again he had the benefit of her profile, the knot of her dark, thick hair and the shadowy line of her eyelashes, but she made no comment on his remark and after a moment of sombre staring he uttered the one word, “Well?”
“Yes?”