d feel
dejected in such a place with everything about her to make her rejoice,
only dejected her the more. But how could she rejoice alone? How
could anybody rejoice and enjoy and appreciate, really appreciate,
alone? Except Lotty. Lotty seemed able to. She had gone off down the
hill directly after breakfast, alone yet obviously rejoicing, for she
had not suggested that Rose should go too, and she was singing as she
went.

Rose had spent the day by herself, sitting with her hands
clasping her knees, staring straight in front of her. What she was
staring at were the grey swords of the agaves, and, on their tall
stalks, the pale irises that grew in the remote place she had found,
while beyond them, between the grey leaves and the blue flowers, she
saw the sea. The place she had found was a hidden corner where the
sun-baked stones were padded with thyme, and nobody was likely to come.
It was out of sight and sound of the house; it was off any path; it was
near the end of the promontory. She sat so quiet that presently
lizards darted over her feet, and some tiny birds like finches,
frightened away at first, came back again and flitted among the bushes
round her just as if she hadn't been there. How beautiful it was. And
what was the good of it with no one there, no one who loved being with
one, who belonged to one, to whom one could say, "Look." And wouldn't
one say, "Look--dearest?" Yes, one would say dearest; and the sweet
word, just to say it to somebody who loved one, would make one happy.

She sat quite still, staring straight in front of her. Strange
that in this place she did not want to pray. She who had prayed so
constantly at home didn't seem able to do it here at all. The first
morning she had merely thrown up a brief thank you to heaven on getting
out of bed, and had gone straight to the window to see what everything
looked like--thrown up the thank you as carelessly as a ball, and
thought no more about it. That morning, remembering this and ashamed,
she had knelt down with determination; but perhaps determination was
bad for prayers, for she had been unable to think of a thing to say.
And as for her bedtime prayers, on neither of the nights had she said a
single one. She had forgotten them. She had been so much absorbed in
other thoughts that she had forgotten them; and, once in bed, she was
asleep and whirling along among bright, thin swift dreams before she
had so much time as to stretch h