with a seat. He thought of how anxiously he had watched
the door for her, and how Zotique had upset all his plans by going so
fearlessly up to her and taking her to the seat at his side. He
wondered she had not noticed how he had stood up all the time she had
been talking to his brother, and how in that way he had tried to get
her to notice the generous vacant space at his side. There was nothing
to be done now but to let Katie misunderstand him: to let her know the
true state of his feelings would be treachery to Zotique.

In a low voice he admitted Zotique's superiority over him also in the
capacity of politeness.

It is wonderful how cruel maidens can be at times. In a tone in which
there was just the slightest shade of reproach, Katie told him that
she really had expected him to show her a little more attention,
considering how very long they had been friends. Perhaps, however, his
lack of attention had been due to his feeling unwell; she had seen how
he had hardly eaten anything. Ill-health would account, too, for the
tremendous covering of salt he had put over his meat.

Poor Vital! This was dreadful; she had misunderstood him in
everything. She would never know that his prodigality with the salt
had been due to the perversity of his heart in longing for what it
would now never possess. Manfully he stuck to the thankless part he
had to play, and admitted that ill-health had something to do with his
strange behavior.

The trees were beginning to assume gigantic shapes and to get mixed up
with the horizon, and his eyes were aching. He was suffering keenly.
Finally his eyes rested on the ground. A new trouble had arisen and
was torturing him: he thought it was his duty to congratulate her on
her engagement with his brother. If he wished her happiness without
waiting for her to tell him about the engagement, she perhaps would
see that he was not quite so impolite as she had thought him. It was
hard to commence. Distressfully his hand caressed the rough fence.

Katie glanced at him stealthily: the troubled look on his face smote
her to the heart. She was ashamed of her cruelty.

Trying to piece his barren English so it would not offend, Vital
finally told her how glad he was that she was going to be his
brother's wife. He dwelt upon Zotique's manliness, and how he was
quite sure she would never be sorry that she had chosen him.

She gazed at him in amazement. "Marry Zotique?" she queried, aghast.

He thought h