"None," said he.
It was a question as to whether they should play the final match that afternoon. Each had won a game.
"Why get through good things all at once?" said he. "That's a sky for sketching--my sort of amiable sketching. The view across the bay from that Penlock hill will be wonderful."
Her readiness to part with his company for the afternoon was simple and genuine.
"Of course," she said, "you're here for a holiday. I was getting selfish. I don't often get a good game, you see. We've plenty of opportunity if, as you say, you don't go till next week."
"Oh, I meant you to come if you would," he explained quickly. "Not much fun, I know. But there's the walk out there and back and I like being talked to while I'm painting. Not much of a conversationalist then, I admit. I'm doing all the selfishness--but one doesn't often get the chance of being talked to--as you talk."
It was the first time she had ever been told that any power of interesting conversation was hers. She felt a catch of excitement in her breath. When she answered him, she could not quite summon her voice to speak on a casual note. It sounded muffled and thick, as though her heart were beating in her throat and she had to speak through it. Yet she was not conscious that it was.
"I'll come if you really want me to," she said, and her acceptance was neither eager nor restrained. She went as freely as she walked and she walked with a loose, swinging stride. It became a mental observation with him as they climbed the cliff path, that their steps fell together with even regularity.
His sketch was a failure. The atmosphere defied him, or the talk they made distracted his mind. He threw the block face downwards on the grass.
"Oh! why do you do that?" she asked, regretting consciously that which she did not know she was glad of--"It looked as if it were going to be so nice."