“What words? Did I say anything? Oh, the beauty of the wheatfield? I will not have it analysed by any canon of criticism. If you say that it is too yellow I shall never speak to you again.”
“I will not say that, and yet perhaps you will never speak to me again.”
The smile faded away from her face at the tone of his voice.
“I will listen to you,” she said resolutely.
He looked into her face for a few moments and then he took a step or two away from her, actually turning round to do so. His eyes were fixed on the ground.
“You said that people come upon the best things in life as—as I came here—to you, and I am going to find out whether I have come upon the best or the worst thing that life has to offer me, for I am going to tell you that I love you and to ask you if you can give me any hope that you will one day think of me as loving you.”
He was now standing face to face with her. He spoke in a low voice but not in even tones, until she gave a little cry—it sounded like a sob—when he was half way through his sentences, making a motion of protest with one hand; then his voice became quite steady—steady almost to a point of coldness.
She did not answer him at once. But there came a silence, through which they could both hear the hum of the wild bees on the green bank.
Two sulphur butterflies danced above them in the air.
She watched the butterflies, and then glanced at the bank.