An hour later she was sitting on the slope under the hill road of
Greffington Edge. He lay on his back beside her in the bracken. Lindley
Vickers.
Suddenly he pulled himself up into a sitting posture like her own. She
was then aware that Mr. Sutcliffe had gone up the road behind them; he
had lifted his hat and passed her without speaking.
"What does Sutcliffe talk to you about?"
"Farming."
"And what do you do?"
"Listen."
Below them, across the dale, they could see the square of Morfe on its
platform.
"How long have you lived in that place?"
"Ten years. No; eleven."
"Women," he said, "are wonderful. I can't think where you come from. I
knew your father, I know Dan and your mother, and Victor Olivier and your
aunt--"
"Which aunt?"
"The Unitarian lady; and I knew Mark--and Rodney. They don't account for
you."
"Does anybody account for anybody else?"
"Yes. You believe in heredity?"
"I don't know enough about it."
"You should read Haeckel--_The History of Evolution_, and Herbert Spencer
and Ribot's _Heredity_. It would interest you.... No, it wouldn't. It
wouldn't interest you a bit."
"It sounds as if it would rather."
"It wouldn't.... Look here, promise me you won't think about it, you'll
let it alone. Promise me."
He was like Jimmy making you promise not to hang out of top-storey
windows.
"No good making promises."
"Well," he said, "there's nothing in it.... I wish I hadn't said that
about your playing. I only wanted to see whether you'd mind or not."
"I don't mind. What does it matter? When I'm making music I think there's
nothing but music in all the world; when I'm doing philosophy I think
there's nothing but philosophy in all the world; when I'm writing verses
I think there's nothing but writing in all the world; and when I'm
playing tennis I think there's nothing but tennis in all the world."
"I see. And when you suffer you think there's nothing but suffering in
all the world."
"Yes."
"And when--and when--"
His face was straight and serious and quiet. His eyes covered her; first
her face, then her breasts; she knew he could see her bodice quiver with
the beating of her heart. She felt afraid.
"Then," he said, "you'll not think; you'll know."