Then they both laughed, with their heads thrown back, after the manner of people who give themselves over to a laugh.
It seemed that she was under the impression that an apology for her presence there was necessary, for there was more than an explanatory note in her voice while she said:
“I had no idea that—why, I thought that you had gone to Marlow—I was in the garden but there was a horribly crowded steamer with a terrible Hampsteading crowd aboard and a whistle. I came out on the road and was amazed to find that I had never heard that a wheatfield is the most beautiful thing in the world. How is it that the people here have been talking on any other subject during the past few days? What else is there worth talking about in comparison with this?”
She made a motion with her sunshade to include all the landscape. He did not look at the landscape: he was too busy looking at her.
“I wondered what it could be compared to,” she resumed with great rapidity. She did not show her disappointment at his disregard of the glory of mellow growth which he had taken the trouble to indicate. “Oh, what is worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as this?... But how did you come here from that direction?”
“I crossed the river by the bridge and took a stroll through the woods,” said he. “I was not sure that I should find a path through this field, but when I saw the stile I had hopes.”
“That is how people come upon the best things that life has in store for them—by the merest fluke,” said she, and she made a movement as if she understood that they were to walk together to The Weir.
“Don’t let us go away for another minute,” said he, without moving.
She turned her head only, with the sunshade over it. An enquiry was on her face.
“Don’t go away,” he repeated. “I was going to put those words of yours to the test.”