ome-sick aspirations. So that, even when she was sitting
silent, a slim, long foot stretched out in front, bending with an air of
cool absorption over some pencil sketches which she would not show
him--even then, by her very attitude, by the sweet freshness that clung
about her, by her quick, offended glances at the strange persons round,
she seemed to acknowledge in some secret way that he was necessary. He
was far from realising this; his intellectual and observant parts were
hypnotised and fascinated even by her failings. The faint freckling
across her nose, the slim and virginal severeness of her figure, with its
narrow hips and arms, the curve of her long neck-all were added charms.
She had the wind and rain look, a taste of home; and over the glaring
roads, where the palm-tree shadows lay so black, she seemed to pass like
the very image of an English day.

One afternoon he had taken her to play tennis with some friends, and
afterwards they strolled on to her favourite view. Down the Toulon road
gardens and hills were bathed in the colour of ripe apricot; an evening
crispness had stolen on the air; the blood, released from the sun's
numbing, ran gladly in the veins. On the right hand of the road was a
Frenchman playing bowls. Enormous, busy, pleased, and upright as a
soldier, pathetically trotting his vast carcass from end to end, he
delighted Shelton. But Antonia threw a single look at the huge creature,
and her face expressed disgust. She began running up towards the ruined
tower.

Shelton let her keep in front, watching her leap from stone to stone and
throw back defiant glances when he pressed behind. She stood at the top,
and he looked up at her. Over the world, gloriously spread below, she,
like a statue, seemed to rule. The colour was brilliant in her cheeks,
her young bosom heaved, her eyes shone, and the flowing droop of her
long, full sleeves gave to her poised figure the look of one who flies.
He pulled himself up and stood beside her; his heart choked him, all the
colour had left his cheeks.

"Antonia," he said, "I love you."

She started, as if his whisper had intruded on her thoughts; but his face
must have expressed his hunger, for the resentment in her eyes vanished.

They stood for several minutes without speaking, and then went home.
Shelton painfully revolved the riddle of the colour in her face. Had he
a chance then? Was it possible? That evening the instinct vouchsafed at
tim