“No, you’re not. What’s wrong?”
“Lots of things.”
“When we get back to Havana—” began Ratcliffe. She cut him short.
“I don’t want to go back to Havana,” said she. “Ain’t going.”
She sat down on the sands plump, nursed her knees, and stared over the sea, casting her hat beside her. He stood for a moment, then he sat down. He knew at once, knew what had been working in her mind for days.
“You’re bothering about what Sellers said, dirty scoundrel! I’d have punched his head, only the whole thing happened so quick and you landed him with that mop—don’t worry.”
No reply.
“What’s the good?” went on Ratcliffe; then cautiously and feeling that he was treading on dangerous ground, “See here, there’s no harm in being a girl, no more than there is in being a man.”
No reply.
A laughing gull passed and jeered at them. Jude followed it with her eyes. She seemed almost unconscious of his presence and not to have heard his words. He watched her profile against the sky, noticed the eyelashes which seemed longer and more curved up than ever, the nice shape of the head, free of the old panama.