“You said the other night you were an artist; but you know as well as I do, that if you are going to do anything in that way you will have to work, and that you won’t work if you begin to loaf about, taking drinks with this person and that. I can’t even understand why you should want to. If _I_ had any particular gift I would cultivate it for all it was worth.” “Have you no gift?” “No. As you also remarked, I am a person of taste.” “I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean anything.” “You believed it all the same.” “I’m not sure that I did. You’re clever enough.” “Thank you. I’ll not come any further.” “Won’t you? It was good of you bothering about me, and I took it very well, didn’t I?” He smiled. “You didn’t take it at all; but that’s not my fault.” CHAPTER XLIX It was a cloudless afternoon when I went back to Derryaghy. Katherine was quite ready and we set out immediately. As I walked beside her, in her simple cotton dress, and with her gay parasol, I thought her adorable. “Do you remember our picnic?” I asked, for I was for ever harking back to it in my mind. “Which? There have been so many!” “I mean our own――the one we went together――the first of all.” “It seems centuries ago. I wonder if Bryansford isn’t too far for this afternoon? The others were saying something about driving. That would be better.” “It was a day very like this,” I went on, “a perfect summer day.” And a strange thrill passed through me as I recalled its incidents. The air was as soft as velvet. The August sun streamed over the fields. We followed a lane which led us past a long, low house, where an immense cherry-tree, with a trunk nine or ten feet in circumference, spread its branches in a small green orchard. I repeated aloud some lines of a poem I remembered: “I know a little garden-close Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might From dewy dawn to dewy night, And have one with me wandering.” Two friendly dogs wagged their tails, and a cat lounging on the gray stone wall unclosed its eyes in sleepy yellow slits. “Can’t we be friends, Katherine, as we were then?” I pleaded. “But aren’t we friends?” she asked, with a shade of impatience in her voice. “You know what I mean.” “I’m afraid I _don’t_ know what you mean, Peter.” Then she unexpectedly added: “You’re a very queer mixture. I often wonder how you’ll come out in the end.” “I haven’t an idea,” I replied, somewhat taken aback. The remark appeared to me peculiar, and I felt as if she had pushed me farther away; and with this my self-confidence began to evaporate.