.. different?" she triumphed, with affected wonder.
"Oh, awfully!" He picked up her hand and laid a kiss on the sunburnt
knuckles.
"Come," he said, "let's be off." He stood up and shook the grass from
his loose grey clothes. "What a good day! Where are you going to take me
tomorrow?"
VI
That evening after supper Charity sat alone in the kitchen and listened
to Mr. Royall and young Harney talking in the porch.
She had remained indoors after the table had been cleared and old Verena
had hobbled up to bed. The kitchen window was open, and Charity seated
herself near it, her idle hands on her knee. The evening was cool and
still. Beyond the black hills an amber west passed into pale green,
and then to a deep blue in which a great star hung. The soft hoot of a
little owl came through the dusk, and between its calls the men's voices
rose and fell.
Mr. Royall's was full of a sonorous satisfaction. It was a long time
since he had had anyone of Lucius Harney's quality to talk to: Charity
divined that the young man symbolized all his ruined and unforgotten
past.
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