the elemental creatures whose emotion is all in
their pulses, and who become inexpressive or sentimental when they
try to turn sensation into speech. His caress had restored her to her
natural place in the scheme of things, and Darrow felt as if he had
clasped a tree and a nymph had bloomed from it...

The mere fact of not having to listen to her any longer added immensely
to her charm. She continued, of course, to talk to him, but it didn't
matter, because he no longer made any effort to follow her words, but
let her voice run on as a musical undercurrent to his thoughts.

She hadn't a drop of poetry in her, but she had some of the qualities
that create it in others; and in moments of heat the imagination does
not always feel the difference...

Lying beside her in the shade, Darrow felt her presence as a part of
the charmed stillness of the summer woods, as the element of vague
well-being that suffused his senses and lulled to sleep the ache of
wounded pride. All he asked of her, as yet, was a touch on the hand or
on the lips--and that she should let him go on lying there through the
long warm hours, while a black-bird's song throbbed like a fountain, and
the summer wind stirred in the trees, and close by, between the nearest
branches and the brim of his tilted hat, a slight white figure gathered
up all the floating threads of joy...

He recalled, too, having noticed, as he lay staring at a break in the
tree-tops, a stream of mares'-tails coming up the sky. He had said to
himself: "It will rain to-morrow," and the thought had made the air seem
warmer and the sun more vivid on her hair...Perhaps if the mares'-tails
had not come up the sky their adventure might have had no sequel. But
the cloud brought rain, and next morning he looked out of his window
into a cold grey blur. They had planned an all-day excursion down the
Seine, to the two Andelys and Rouen, and now, with the long hours on
their hands, they were both a little at a loss...There was the Louvre,
of course, and the Luxembourg; but he had tried looking at pictures with
her, she had first so persistently admired the worst things, and then
so frankly lapsed into indifference, that he had no wish to repeat
the experiment. So they went out, aimlessly, and took a cold wet walk,
turning at length into the deserted arcades of the Palais Royal, and
finally drifting into one of its equally deserted restaurants, where
they lunched alone and somewhat dolefully, serve