"She'll be there, of course. Women are all perfectly insensible to weather."
Two mackintoshed figures met in the circle of pines.
"You have come," he said. "I never dreamed you would. How cold your hand is!"
He held it for a moment warmly clasped.
"I thought it might stop any minute," said Betty; "it seemed a pity to waste a morning."
"Yes," he said musingly, "it would be a pity to waste a morning. I would not waste one of these mornings for a kingdom."
Betty fumbled with her sketching things as a sort of guarantee of good faith.
"But it's too wet to work," said she. "I suppose I'd better go home again."
"That seems a dull idea—for me," he said; "it's very selfish, of course, but I'm rather sad this morning. Won't you stay a little and cheer me up?"
Betty asked nothing better. But even to her a tete-a-tete in a wood, with rain pattering and splashing on leaves and path and resonant mackintoshes, seemed to demand some excuse.