"How I love you!" said Elsbeth, kneeling beside Mrs. Durrant's chair.
"Give me the wool," said Mrs. Durrant.
"He's come—he's come!" cried Charlotte Wilding. "I've won my bet!"
"There's another bunch higher up," murmured Clara Durrant, mounting another step of the ladder. Jacob held the ladder as she stretched out to reach the grapes high up on the vine.
"There!" she said, cutting through the stalk. She looked semi-transparent, pale, wonderfully beautiful up there among the vine leaves and the yellow and purple bunches, the lights swimming over her in coloured islands. Geraniums and begonias stood in pots along planks; tomatoes climbed the walls.
"The leaves really want thinning," she considered, and one green one, spread like the palm of a hand, circled down past Jacob's head.
"I have more than I can eat already," he said, looking up.
"It does seem absurd …" Clara began, "going back to London…."
"Ridiculous," said Jacob, firmly.
"Then …" said Clara, "you must come next year, properly," she said, snipping another vine leaf, rather at random.