‘Are they worth, do you think, quite a penny?’ suddenly inquired a quiet voice in the silence. He looked up into the almost colourless face, into the grey eyes beneath their clear narrow brows.
‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘what a curious thing life is, and wondering—’
‘The first half is well worth the penny—its originality! I can’t afford twopence. So you must give me what you were wondering.’
Lawford gazed rather blankly across the twilight fields. ‘I was wondering,’ he said with an oddly naive candour, ‘how long it took one to sink.’
‘They say, you know,’ Grisel replied solemnly, ‘drowned sailors float midway, suffering their sea change; purgatory. But what a splendid pennyworth. All pure philosophy!’
‘“Philosophy!”’ said Lawford; ‘I am a perfect fool. Has your brother told you about me?’
She glanced at him quickly. ‘We had a talk.’
‘Then you do know—?’ He stopped dead, and turned to her. ‘You really realise it, looking at me now?’
‘I realise,’ she said gravely, ‘that you look even a little more pale and haggard than when I saw you first the other night. We both, my brother and I, you know, thought for certain you’d come yesterday. In fact, I went into the Widderstone in the evening to look for you, knowing your nocturnal habits....’ She glanced again at him with a kind of shy anxiety.
‘Why—why is your brother so—why does he let me bore him so horribly?’