“Good day?”
“No—nothing,” he said shortly.
The following morning when she appeared, she looked into his face once and asked no questions. They were silent during the walk, each curious of the other, keeping a little apart as though a thousand miles intervened between them. The evening had gone down in angry squalls and, across the white-lipped sea, the wind went scurrying in frantic flights. At their sides, the wakened sand-grasses writhed in fitful temper, hissing like disturbed serpents. Occasionally a whirlwind, turning along the beach, flung stinging pellets against their eyes. A great restlessness, a rebellion against indistinct things filled their breasts and made them ache, and persistently their eyes avoided the other’s.
When they had gained the shack and barred the groaning door against the assaults of the storm, she took the easel from his back, stood a moment looking solemnly into his clouded face, and turned without a smile. A moment later, as he sat sunk in a chair before the fire to which he had given fiery wings, she came with his slippers and knelt at his feet. Before he realized what she was doing, she had started to unlace his boots. He drew back angrily, crying:
“Why do you do that!”
But, without changing her pose, she remained kneeling, and suddenly, clutching his knees, she cried passionately:
“Oh, please—please let me!”
Then, with a rise of tears, he understood the longing and the misery she expressed in this instinctive submission, and, leaning suddenly, drew her up into his arms, where she lay with a catch of her breath.
“Mr. Dan, Mr. Dan, you are so unhappy!” she said at the last.