“Then indeed I will hold out both hands to catch the sweetness.”
“Nay—it is bitter, not sweet, bitter as gall, and briny as the ocean.”
“Not possible; a little salt gives savor.”
She shook her head, took up the stocking, did a couple of stitches, and put it down again. The sea-breeze that tossed the pink bunches of tamarisk waved stray tresses of her red-gold hair, but somehow the brilliancy, the burnish, seemed gone from it. Her eyes were sunken, and there was a greenish tinge about the ivory white surrounding her mouth.
“I cannot work, dear Mr. Menaida; I am so sorry that I should have played badly that sonata last night. I knew it fretted you, but I could not help myself, my mind is so selfishly directed that I cannot attend to anything even of Beethoven’s in music, nor to stocking-knitting even for Jamie.”
“And what are the bitter—briny thoughts?”
Judith did not answer at once, she looked down into her lap, and Mr. Menaida, whose pipe was choked, went to the tamarisks and plucked a little piece, stripped off the flower and proceeded to clear the tube with it.
Presently, while Uncle Zachie’s eyes were engaged on the pipe, Judith looked up, and said hastily, “I am very young, Mr. Menaida.”
“A fault in process of rectification every day,” said he, blowing through the stem of his pipe. “I think it is clear now.”
“I mean—young to be married.”