The Jean of the last few days—the days immediately following their quarrel—had temporarily vanished. The beauty of the Moor had taken hold of her, and all the mockery and bitter-sweetness which she had latterly reserved for Tomarin’s benefit was absent from her manner. She was just her natural sweet and wholesome self.
“’M—m? Do I remember—what?”
“I was thinking what a pagan little beauty-lover you are! You worshipped the Alps. Now you are worshipping Dartmoor.”
She nodded.
“I don’t see why you should call it ‘pagan,’ though. I should say it was equally Christian. I think we were meant to love beauty. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been such a lot of it about. God didn’t put it around just by accident.”
“Quite probably you’re right,” agreed Blaise. “In which case you must be”—he smiled—“an excellent Christian.”
“Positively I believe they’re talking theology!”
Claire’s voice, girlishly gay and free from the nervous restraint which normally dulled its cadence of youth, broke suddenly on their ears, as she and Nick, rounding the corner of a big granite boulder, discovered the two recumbent forms.
“You disgustingly lazy people!” she pursued indignantly. “Everybody’s dashing wildly to and fro unpacking the lunch baskets, while you two are just lounging here in blissful idleness!”
“It’s chronic with me,” murmured Tormarin lazily. “And anyway, Claire, neither you nor Nick appear to be precisely overtaxing yourselves bearing nectar and ambrosia.”