He looked her full in the face for just the space of a second.
“And you make me happy,” he said.
She laughed, apparently serene and self-possessed, and turned up the hill, he following a fraction of a length behind.
In grassy hollows late dandelions starred the green with gold, the red alder’s scarlet berries flamed along the road-side thickets; beyond, against the sky, acres of dead mullein stalks stood guard above the hollow scrub.
“Do you know,” she said, over her shoulder, “that there is a rose in bloom in our garden?”
“Is there?” he asked, without surprise.
“Doesn’t it astonish you?” she demanded. “Roses don’t bloom up here in October.”
“Oh yes, they do,” he muttered.
At the gate they dismounted, he silent, preoccupied, she uneasily alert and outwardly very friendly.
“How warm it is!” she said; “it will be like a night in June with the moon up—and that rose in the garden.… You say that you are coming this evening?”