Prudence, missing the guile in this, looked at him in astonishment.
“Really!” she said. “You are easily pleased.”
“You think so?” He drew a little nearer to her; his disengaged hand, hanging at his side, brushed lightly against hers. “I don’t think that myself. But you see I have met much kindness here, and—forgive my saying so—it is such a happiness in itself to know you. I doubt whether you understand what a priceless pleasure that is to me.”
“It is very flattering of you to say so,” Prudence broke in hastily, and not so much turned the conversation as jerked it into an impersonal channel. “Look at that gorgeous splash of red on those clouds. Isn’t it just as though they were catching fire?”
“Yes,” he said in a flattened voice, feeling the rebuff; “it’s very fine.”
“Isn’t it? And that warm light on the trees... You can see it spreading along the branches. They’re all aglow. If it could only last!”
“‘The light of the whole world dies when day is done,’” quoted the curate sentimentally, and gazed in rapt admiration upon her face which was all aglow too, but owed nothing of its colour to the sunset. “You look like one inspired,” he added. “I wish I could sketch you as I see you now.”
Prudence made an impatient movement.
“I don’t believe you care a bit for beautiful scenery,” she said.
“I do,” he assured her eagerly. “I admire everything beautiful. I... Never mind the sunset now. I’m thinking of you. I can’t think of anything else. I want to—”