ation.

He hacked at the earth till she was fretted to death. She rose. He sat
flinging lumps of earth in the stream.

"We will go and have tea here?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered.

They chattered over irrelevant subjects during tea. He held forth on
the love of ornament--the cottage parlour moved him thereto--and its
connection with aesthetics. She was cold and quiet. As they walked home,
she asked:

"And we shall not see each other?"

"No--or rarely," he answered.

"Nor write?" she asked, almost sarcastically.

"As you will," he answered. "We're not strangers--never should be,
whatever happened. I will write to you now and again. You please
yourself."

"I see!" she answered cuttingly.

But he was at that stage at which nothing else hurts. He had made a
great cleavage in his life. He had had a great shock when she had told
him their love had been always a conflict. Nothing more mattered. If it
never had been much, there was no need to make a fuss that it was ended.

He left her at the lane-end. As she went home, solitary, in her new
frock, having her people to face at the other end, he stood still with
shame and pain in the highroad, thinking of the suffering he caused her.

In the reaction towards restoring his self-esteem, he went into the
Willow Tree for a drink. There were four girls who had been out for the
day, drinking a modest glass of port. They had some chocolates on the
table. Paul sat near with his whisky. He noticed the girls whispering
and nudging. Presently one, a bonny dark hussy, leaned to him and said:

"Have a chocolate?"

The others laughed loudly at her impudence.

"All right," said Paul. "Give me a hard one--nut. I don't like creams."

"Here you are, then," said the girl; "here's an almond for you."

She held the sweet between her fingers. He opened his mouth. She popped
it in, and blushed.

"You ARE nice!" he said.

"Well," she answered, "we thought you looked overcast, and they dared me
offer you a chocolate."

"I don't mind if I have another--another sort," he said.

And presently they were all laughing together.

It was nine o'clock when he got home, falling dark. He entered the house
in silence. His mother, who had been waiting, rose anxiously.

"I told her," he said.

"I'm glad," replied the mother, with great relief.

He hung up his cap wearily.

"I said we'd have done altogether," he said.

"That's right, my son," said the mother. "It's hard for her now