Irene said nothing, but sat quite still, her head bent, looking down at the slanting grove of olives. Framed within the square-cut hair, her face was sad. “If you were so much interested in him, why did you suggest vat we should go for a walk vis afternoon?” he asked. “Perhaps you fought I was Chelifer.” He was possessed by an urgent desire to say disagreeable and hurting things. And yet he was perfectly aware, all the time, that he was making a fool of himself and being unfair to her. But the desire was irresistible. “Why do you try to spoil everything?” she asked with an exasperating sadness and patience. “I don’t try to spoil anyfing,” Hovenden answered irritably. “I merely ask a simple question.” “You know I don’t take the slightest interest in Chelifer,” she said. “Ven why do you trot after him all day long, like a little dog?” The boy’s stupidity and insistence began to annoy her. “I don’t,” she said angrily. “And in any case it’s no business of yours.” “Oh, it’s no business of mine, is it?” said Hovenden in a provocative voice. “Fanks for ve information.” And he was pointedly silent. For a long time neither of them spoke. Some dark brown sheep with bells round their necks came straying between the trees a little way down the slope. With set, sad faces the two young people looked at them. The bells made a tinkling as the creatures moved. The sweet thin noise sounded, for some reason, extremely sad in their ears. Sad, too, was the bright sky between the leaves; profoundly melancholy the redder, richer light of the declining sun, colouring the silver leaves, the grey trunks, the parched thin grass. It was Hovenden who at last broke silence. His anger, his desire to say hurting, disagreeable things had utterly evaporated; there remained only the conviction that he had made a fool of himself and been unfair—only that and the profound aching love which had given his anger, his foolish cruel desire such force. “You know I don’t take the slightest interest in Chelifer.” He hadn’t known; but now that she had said so, and in that tone of voice, now he knew. One couldn’t doubt; and even if one could, was it worth doubting? “Look here,” he said at last, in a muffled voice, “I made a fool of myself, I’m afraid. I’ve said stupid things. I’m sorry, Irene. Will you forgive me?” Irene turned towards him the little square window in her hair. Her face looked out of it smiling. She gave him her hand. “One day I’ll tell you,” she said. They sat there hand in hand for what seemed to them at once a very long time and a timeless instant. They said nothing, but they were very happy. The sun set. A grey half-night came creeping in under the trees. Between the black silhouetted leaves the sky looked exceedingly pale. Irene sighed. “I think we ought to be getting back,” she said reluctantly.