The click of the iron latch caught her ear, and she turned swiftly, with the roses held close against her breast. Comethup caught his breath as he looked at her. Something strangely familiar, and yet strangely unfamiliar, was in her attitude, and in the glance she gave him; he was still tugging at his memory and hesitating on that half recognition of her, when she came forward slowly, smiling and colouring a little. And then he knew her.
“’Linda!” he faltered, and pulled his cap off awkwardly.
She thrust the bundle of roses into the curve of one arm and shyly held out her hand to him, yet with a self-possession that only increased his nervousness. He took the hand and held it, and did not quite know what to do with it, until she released it, and laughed, and looked at her roses.
“The captain told me you were coming, Comethup,” she said. And then, quite irrelevantly, “Isn’t it a beautiful morning?”
“Lovely,” murmured Comethup absently, looking at her rather than at the sky. “I—I’ve been looking for you at—at the old house.”
“Have you? I got up quite early this morning; we must have missed each other. You see, the captain likes roses, and I thought that these would look nice—in a bowl, you know—on the breakfast table.”
“I’m sure they will,” said Comethup, getting his voice a little under control and wondering vaguely why his throat was so dry. “Do you know, I didn’t know you at first, ’Linda; I’d quite forgotten that you’d be—be grown up. It’s such a long time, you see; everything seems to have altered.”
“Yes. You’ve altered, Comethup, very much.” She plucked another rose and added it to the bunch, and pressed her face down upon them. Without looking up, she said, “Shall we go in and put them in water?”
“Yes, I think we’d better.” He was so much in awe of her that he was quite afraid to come near her, and kept his distance, accordingly, in the narrow path. He opened the door for her, and, in her nervousness, she caught her foot on the step and tumbled against him; they both blushed and laughed, and she dropped some of the roses. Comethup stooped to pick them up, and found that they were not at all easy things to get hold of; they seemed to slip out of his fingers as easily as they had slipped out of hers. However, they were all picked up at last, and the two went together into the captain’s little sitting room.
There a bowl had to be found, and Comethup was quite glad to get away for a moment to fetch water, in order that he might recover his feelings. She was very busy with the flowers when he came back, setting them in place in the big bowl, and singing softly to herself as she did so. Once, when a flower fell over the edge, Comethup sprang to reach it, and their hands met on the table; the hand and arm seemed to burn, and he wondered, desperately and foolishly, if his face had turned red, and why it was so impossible to talk naturally and easily to her—why, indeed, he could find nothing to talk about.