ointin'. The thing is to get human interest,
isn't it?" and her glance wandered absently past Shelton in search of
human interest.

"You haven't put down what you've taken, mother."

From a little leather bag Mrs. Dennant took a little leather book.

"It's so easy to forget what they're about," she said, "that's so
annoyin'."

Shelton was not again visited by his uneasiness at their detachment; he
accepted them and all their works, for there was something quite sublime
about the way that they would leave the dining-room, unconscious that
they themselves were funny to all the people they had found so funny
while they had been sitting there, and he would follow them out
unnecessarily upright and feeling like a fool.

In the ensuing fortnight, chaperoned by the maiden aunt, for Mrs.
Dennant disliked driving, he sat opposite to Antonia during many drives;
he played sets of tennis with her; but it was in the evenings after
dinner--those long evenings on a parquet floor in wicker chairs dragged
as far as might be from the heating apparatus--that he seemed so very
near her. The community of isolation drew them closer. In place of a
companion he had assumed the part of friend, to whom she could confide
all her home-sick aspirations. So that, even when she was sitting
silent, a slim, long foot stretched out in front, bending with an air
of cool absorption over some pencil sketches which she would not show
him--even then, by her very attitude, by the sweet freshness that clung
about her, by her quick, offended glances at the strange persons round,
she seemed to acknowledge in some secret way that he was necessary. He
was far from realising this; his intellectual and observant parts were
hypnotised and fascinated even by her failings. The faint freckling
across her nose, the slim and virginal severeness of her figure, with
its narrow hips and arms, the curve of her long neck-all were added
charms. She had the wind and rain look, a taste of home; and over the
glaring roads, where the palm-tree shadows lay so black, she seemed to
pass like the very image of an English day.

One afternoon he had taken her to play tennis with some friends, and
afterwards they strolled on to her favourite view. Down the Toulon road
gardens and hills were bathed in the colour of ripe apricot; an evening
crispness had stolen on the air; the blood, released from the sun's
numbing, ran gladly in the veins. On the right hand of the road was
a Frenchm