“You may talk to me—if you like.”
Gabriel considered her with an elemental sense of awe. Her manner was so essentially natural that he could imagine no flaw in her modesty. He had had abundant experience of coquettes. The girl did not appeal to him as such, rather as a Diana or a Belphœbe.
She sat down a short distance from him, and flicked her skirt over her feet. She had bound back her hair over her neck in rich and ample clusters. Her blouse was still open at the throat.
“Do you live here?”
“At Saltire. And you?”
“With my father, on the hills above Rilchester. Are you twenty yet?”
Gabriel smiled in such fashion that her eyes echoed his.
“I am older than you are,” he said.
“Much?”
“You are illogical; how should I know?”