uldn't have done that," he said; "you shouldn't have run away
from me, you know."

Rozsi laughed. Swithin withdrew his arm; a desire to shake her seized
him. He walked some way before he said, "Will you have the goodness to
tell me what you came to that seat for?"

Rozsi flashed a look at him. "To-morrow is the fete," she answered.

Swithin muttered, "Is that all?"

"If you do not take us, we cannot go."

"Suppose I refuse," he said sullenly, "there are plenty of others."

Rozsi bent her head, scurrying along. "No," she murmured, "if you do not
go--I do not wish."

Swithin drew her hand back within his arm. How round and soft it was! He
tried to see her face. When she was nearly home he said goodbye, not
wishing, for some dark reason, to be seen with her. He watched till she
had disappeared; then slowly retraced his steps to the Mirabell Garden.
When he came to where she had been sitting, he slowly lighted his cigar,
and for a long time after it was smoked out remained there in the silent
presence of the statues.

VII

A crowd of people wandered round the booths, and Swithin found himself
obliged to give the girls his arms. 'Like a little Cockney clerk!' he
thought. His indignation passed unnoticed; they talked, they laughed,
each sight and sound in all the hurly-burly seemed to go straight into
their hearts. He eyed them ironically--their eager voices, and little
coos of sympathy seemed to him vulgar. In the thick of the crowd he
slipped his arm out of Margit's, but, just as he thought that he was
free, the unwelcome hand slid up again. He tried again, but again Margit
reappeared, serene, and full of pleasant humour; and his failure this
time appeared to him in a comic light. But when Rozsi leaned across him,
the glow of her round cheek, her curving lip, the inscrutable grey gleam
of her eyes, sent a thrill of longing through him. He was obliged to
stand by while they parleyed with a gipsy, whose matted locks and skinny
hands inspired him with a not unwarranted disgust. "Folly!" he muttered,
as Rozsi held out her palm. The old woman mumbled, and shot a malignant
look at him. Rozsi drew back her hand, and crossed herself. 'Folly!'
Swithin thought again; and seizing the girls' arms, he hurried them away.

"What did the old hag say?" he asked.

Rozsi shook her head.

"You don't mean that you believe?"

Her eyes were full of tears. "The gipsies are wise," she murmured.

"Come, wha