“And now tell me something about yourself,” she said. “What are you doing? What are you working at? How is your dear mamma?”
Paul gave her a grateful glance. He felt he could speak to-day of all that was in his heart; then it suddenly occurred to him that the pause for breakfast was long over, and that the servant was waiting for him with the horses. By noon he must finish, for after dinner the cart was to drive to the town with a load of peat which he had had secretly cut.
“I must go to work,” he faltered.
“Oh, what a pity! And when will you have done?”
“At dinner-time.”
“I can’t wait so long as that or mamma will be uneasy. But in the next few days do come and look here again—perhaps you’ll find me. Now I shall lie here for another hour or so and watch you. It looks quite splendid when you walk up and down in your big snowy white cloth and the grain flies round you.”
He gave her his hand silently and went away.
“I shall leave the book here,” she called after him; “fetch it when you have finished.”
The servant smiled knowingly when he saw him come, and Paul hardly dared to raise his eyes to him.
Each time when he passed at his work the place where she was resting in the wood she raised herself up a little and waved to him with her pocket-handkerchief. About twelve o’clock she rolled up her hammock, stepped to the edge of the wood, and called out a farewell to him through her folded hands.