By degrees the lines at the sides of her mouth
began to quiver.
"Why, that person was abominable!" she declared. "He stared at me as
though I were something unreal. He had taken off his coat and rolled
his shirt sleeves up. He had on bright yellow boots and a hateful
necktie. You, indeed! I would as soon believe," she concluded, "that
you had fallen, to-day from a flying-machine."
"Let us believe that," he begged, earnestly. "Why not? Indeed, in a
sense it is true. I am cut adrift from my kind, a stroller through
life, a vagabond without any definite place or people. I am trying to
teach myself the simplest forms of philosophy. To-day the sky is so
blue and the wind blows from the west and the sun is just hot enough
to draw the perfume from the gorse and the heather. Come and walk with
me over the moors. We will race the shadows, for surely we can move
quicker than those fleecy little morsels of clouds!"
"Certainly not," she retorted, with a firmness which was suspiciously
emphasized. "I couldn't think of walking anywhere with a person whom
I didn't know! And besides, I have to go and make tea in a few
minutes."
He looked over her shoulder and sighed. A trim parlor maid was busy
arranging a small table under the cedar tree.
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