"My face?—"
"Could be cruel. But it never will be. Something's happened to it. Some cruelty. Some damnable cruelty."
"What makes you think so?"
"Every kind and beautiful thing on earth, Jeanne, has been made so by some cruelty."
"That's all rot. Utter rot. You don't know what you're talking about…. It's milking time. There's Gwinnie semaphoring. Do you know old Burton's going to keep us on? He'll pay us wages from this quarter. He says we were worth our keep from the third day."
"Do you want to stay on here?"
"Rather."
"Very well then, so do I. That settles it."
"Get up," she said, "and come along. Gwinnie's frantic."
He sat up, bowed forwards, his hands hanging loose over his knees. She stood and looked down at him, at the arch of his long, slender back dropping to the narrow hips. She could feel the sudden crush of her breath in her chest and the sighing throb in her throat and her lips parting.