"I think," John said, "you're mistaken. Anne isn't like that…. I hope you haven't said anything to Maisie?"
Adeline made a face at him, as much as to say, "What do you take me for?" She lifted up her charming, wilful face and powdered it carefully.
iii
The earth smelt of the coming rain. All night the trees had whispered of rain coming to-morrow. Now they waited.
At noon the wind dropped. Thick clouds, the colour of dirty sheep's wool, packed tight by their own movement, roofed the sky and walled it round, hanging close to the horizon. A slight heaving and swelling in the grey mass packed it tighter. It was pregnant with rain. Here and there a steaming vapour broke from it as if puffed out by some immense interior commotion. Thin tissues detached themselves and hung like a frayed hem, lengthening, streaming to the hilltops in the west.
Anne was going up the fields towards the Manor and Jerrold was coming down towards the Manor Farm. They met at the plantation as the first big drops fell.
He called out to her, "I say, you oughtn't to be out a day like this."
Anne had been ill all January with a slight touch of pleurisy after a cold that she had taken no care of.
"I'm going to see Maisie."
"You're not," he said. "It's going to rain like fury."