They had strolled on along the path till they came to the schoolmistress’s grave, which was green and daisy-covered, as if many years had passed since her burial. Hadria stood, for a moment, looking down at it.
“Fools, fools, unutterable, irredeemable fools!” she burst out.
“My dear, my dear, we are in a churchyard,” remonstrated Lady Engleton, half laughing.
“We are at this grave,” said Hadria.
“The poor woman would have been among the first to approve of the whole scheme, though it places her here beneath the daisies.”
“Exactly. Am I not justified then in crying ‘fool’? Don’t imagine that I exclude myself,” she added.
“I think you might be less liable to error if you were rather more of a fool, if I may say so,” observed Lady Engleton.
“Oh error! I daresay. One can guard against that, after a fashion, by never making a stretch after truth. And the reward comes, of its kind. How green the grave is. The grass grows so fast on graves.”
Lady Engleton could not bear a churchyard. It made one think too seriously.
“Oh, you needn’t unless you like!” said Hadria with a laugh. “Indeed a churchyard might rather teach us what nonsense it is to take things seriously—our little affairs. This poor woman, a short while ago, was dying of grief and shame and agony, and the village was stirred with excitement, as if the solar system had come to grief. It all seemed so stupendous and important, yet now—look at that tall grass waving in the wind!”