The two walked some way from the 'hut' in silence, before Anna said: “You didn't like me when I laughed?” “You hurt their feelings, I think.” “I wanted to—the English Grundys! Ah! don't be cross with me! They WERE English Grundys, weren't they—every one?” She looked into his face so hard, that he felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and a dizzy sensation of being drawn forward. “They have no blood, those people! Their voices, their supercilious eyes that look you up and down! Oh! I've had so much of them! That woman with her Liberalism, just as bad as any. I hate them all!” He would have liked to hate them, too, since she did; but they had only seemed to him amusing. “They aren't human. They don't FEEL! Some day you'll know them. They won't amuse you then!” She went on, in a quiet, almost dreamy voice: “Why do they come here? It's still young and warm and good out here. Why don't they keep to their Culture, where no one knows what it is to ache and feel hunger, and hearts don't beat. Feel!” Disturbed beyond measure, the boy could not tell whether it was in her heart or in his hand that the blood was pulsing so. Was he glad or sorry when she let his hand go? “Ah, well! They can't spoil this day. Let's rest.” At the edge of the larch-wood where they sat, were growing numbers of little mountain pinks, with fringed edges and the sweetest scent imaginable; and she got up presently to gather them. But he stayed where he was, and odd sensations stirred in him. The blue of the sky, the feathery green of the larch-trees, the mountains, were no longer to him what they had been early that morning. She came back with her hands full of the little pinks, spread her fingers and let them drop. They showered all over his face and neck. Never was so wonderful a scent; never such a strange feeling as they gave him. They clung to his hair, his forehead, his eyes, one even got caught on the curve of his lips; and he stared up at her through their fringed petals. There must have been something wild in his eyes then, something of the feeling that was stinging his heart, for her smile died; she walked away, and stood with her face turned from him. Confused, and unhappy, he gathered the strewn flowers; and not till he had collected every one did he get up and shyly take them to her, where she still stood, gazing into the depths of the larch-wood. V