, she doesn't care a button about it. Wouldn't ride on a pony
even."

"I can very well understand that. Nor would I if I had the chance."

"You're different, Sabina. You've not been brought up in a sporting
family. All the same you'd ride jolly well, because you've got nerve
enough for anything and a perfect figure for riding. You'd look fairly
lovely on horseback."

"Whatever will you say next?"

"I often wonder myself," he answered. "This much I'll say any way: it's
meat and drink to me to be walking here with you. I only wish I was
clever and could really amuse you and make you want to see me,
sometimes. But the things I understand, of course, bore you to tears."

"You know very well that isn't so," she said. "You've told me heaps of
things well worth knowing--things I should never have heard of but for
you. And--and I'm sure I'm very proud of your friendship."

"Good Lord! It's the other way about. Thanks to Mister Churchouse and
your own wits, you are fearfully well read, and your cleverness fairly
staggers me. Just to hear you talk is all I want--at least that isn't
all. Of course, it is a great score for an everyday sort of chap like me
to have interested you."

Sabina did not answer and after a silence which drew out into
awkwardness, she made some remark on the flowers. But Raymond was not
interested about the flowers. He had looked forward to this occasion as
an opportunity of exceptional value and now strove to improve the
shining hour.

"You know I'm a most unlucky beggar really, Sabina. You mightn't think
it, but I am. You see me cheerful, and joking and trying to make things
pleasant for us all at the works; but sometimes, if you could see me
tramping alone over North Hill, or walking on the beach and looking at
the seagulls, you'd be sorry for me."

"Of course, I'd be sorry for you--if there was anything to be sorry
for."

"Look at it. An open-air man brought up to think my father would leave
me all right, and then cut off with nothing and forced to come here and
stew and toil and wear myself out struggling with a most difficult
business--difficult to me, any way."

"I'm sure you're mastering it as quickly as possible."

"But the effort. And my muscles are shrinking and I'm losing weight.
But, of course, that's nothing to anybody but myself. And then, another
side: I want to think of you people first and raise your salaries and
so on--especially yours, for you ought to have pounds where you