His eyes watched under half-closed lids the movements of her hands and
the pretty droop of her head. And he said to himself, "How sweet she
is. And how innocent. And good."
Their chairs were set near together in the small plot of grass. The
little trees of the orchard shut them in. He began to notice things
about her that he had not noticed before, the shape and color of her
finger nails, the modeling of her supple wrists, the way her ears were
curved and laid close to her rather broad head. He saw that her
skin was milk-white at the throat, and honey-white at her ears, and
green-white, the white of an elder flower, at the roots of her red
hair.
And as she unwound her ball of wool it rolled out of her lap and fell
between her feet.
She stooped suddenly, bringing under Rowcliffe's eyes the nape of her
neck, shining with golden down, and her shoulders, sun-warmed and rosy
under the thin muslin of her blouse.
They dived at the same moment, and as their heads came up again their
faces would have touched but that Rowcliffe suddenly drew back his
own.
"I say, I _do_ beg your pardon!"
It was odd, but in the moment of his recoil from that imminent contact
Rowcliffe remembered the little red-haired nurse. Not that there was
much resemblance; for, though the little nurse was sweet, she was
not altogether innocent, neither was she what good people like Mary
Cartaret would call good. And Mary, leaning back in her chair with
the recovered ball in her lap, was smiling at his confusion with an
innocence and goodness of which he could have no doubt.
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