“Do you want to talk of him?”
“Don't you think that he's improved?”
“He's fatter.”
Antonia looked grave.
“No, but really?”
“I don't know,” said Shelton; “I can't judge him.”
Antonia turned her face away, and something in her attitude alarmed him.
“He was once a sort of gentleman,” she said; “why shouldn't he become one again?”
Sitting on the low wall of the kitchen-garden, her head was framed by golden plums. The sun lay barred behind the foliage of the holm oak, but a little patch filtering through a gap had rested in the plum-tree's heart. It crowned the girl. Her raiment, the dark leaves, the red wall, the golden plums, were woven by the passing glow to a block of pagan colour. And her face above it, chaste, serene, was like the scentless summer evening. A bird amongst the currant bushes kept a little chant vibrating; and all the plum-tree's shape and colour seemed alive.
“Perhaps he does n't want to be a gentleman,” said Shelton.