'I know.'
The quiet reserved voice seemed suddenly to lose its flexibility, and the crimson leaf came fluttering down from between her fingers.
'Are you content, Hazel? This fact will make my life more or less what people call singular.'
'But you were always called that,' she said without looking at him.
'Was I? It will be in another way now, Wych. How will you like it?'
'It? your life?very well, I suppose. If I like you,' she answered frankly, though in the same deliberate, abstracted way.
'But a soldier must obey orders, and has no choice. Are you content to go with me, upon such conditions?'
She turned upon him with eyes that seemed half inquiry, half surprise, her colour flitting back and forth in its vivid way. Then she rose suddenly to her feet, and setting her back against the tree and dropping her folded hands, stood looking down at him.
'Will you tell me exactly what you mean?' she said.
He rose too and stood beside her.