"Well, I guessed. No I didn't!" She stood still to think. "Oh—I knew."
"You're like your pictures."
"You see," she was explaining her recognition of him—"I've heard about you since I was ten years old. Did Father ever tell you about me?"
He gave a shout of laughter.
"Oh!" she said, "was it as bad as that? No wonder you wouldn't stay in the house with us."
His face became grave. "I had work to do."
She looked at him with a like solemnity, showing him a face which might have been reverential but for the dancing light in the eyes, and for the lips, held back as in a leash. He lifted his head with a jerk, and stared before him until they were at the crest of the slope, and Theresa paused to see the valley.
He cast a glance at her. She wore a short skirt of some dull purple stuff, and a woollen garment of the same colour that fitted loosely, yet defined her slimly rounded shape. He thought that among the gold and copper of her hair he saw a bronze glide into a glinting purple, and it came into his mind that she was like the heather. Her feet, shod soberly in brown, were planted firmly, but her body, like that mountain plant, gave to the wind, and thereafter she and the flower he loved best were for ever one to him.
She knew he looked at her and she looked back at him, now with a different smile—how many had she?—frank and friendly.
"I do like being here," she said, and clasped her restless hands behind her back.