"I've given you a lot of trouble," she said apologetically. "It was silly of me to make such a fuss, I suppose; but I can't tell you what it felt like."
"I can imagine."
"I've always been afraid it would happen one day; the place swarms with them, doesn't it?"
"They come from the shops across the road," he said.
He was being stupid; he felt it. His little minute of authority was over, and he was self-conscious again.
She began to pick up the hairpins from the grass. David stooped too. As she looked at his hands she thought of the service they had rendered, and shuddered slightly. Absorbed, he watched her lift her hair, and twist it in a hasty coil, and stab it thrice with unconcern. In "The People of the Dream Street" there is a line that was born at this moment, though it was not written till long afterwards.
"You have been staying here for some time, haven't you?" he blurted.
"Yes, nearly a month," she said.
"How pretty it is!"
"Isn't it? We came here for my sister's work—she paints, you know."