Esmé went to her room with the intention of remaining there and writing letters until lunch time. She was tired and wanted to rest. But while she sat at her window with her writing materials on her knee she saw Sinclair approaching from the direction of the garden beyond the kei-apple hedge. She remembered that he was leaving that morning. The early walk, and her pleasure in it, had caused her to forget.
He strolled as far as the vley, and stood by the edge, moodily kicking little stones into the water. He looked up and saw her at the window and looked away again, making pretence that he did not know she was there. She leaned out and spoke to him.
“Isn’t it a perfectly wonderful day?” she called softly.
“Is it?” he said, and came towards her slowly, frowning, and with his hands in his pockets. “It’s much like any other day, I think.”
He leaned with his shoulder against the wall of the house, and regarded her with sulky reproach as she sat on the low sill, facing him, smiling into the hurt boyish eyes. She liked him, and he was going away. She decided to ignore his irritable mood.
“It’s the finish of your holiday,” she said, “and you are sorry. In a fortnight’s time my holiday will have ended. I, too, shall regret leaving this place.”
“It is not the place I mind leaving; it’s dull enough,” he said ungraciously. “There is nothing to do except moon around. Where did you have breakfast this morning?”
“At a little house along the road. I went to see the sun rise.”
“It is possible to view that astronomical phenomenon from your bedroom window,” he retorted disagreeably.
“I dare say it is. But I wanted the walk.”