"Why, you are. You look more like yourself this morning."
"Do I? It's only the clothes, I always look odd in the evening."
He looked amused. "Well, perhaps you do, a little," he admitted.
They strolled down the drive and through the gates into the little town.
The air was full of West Country softness, it smelt of brine and earth
and growing things. "If we keep straight on," she said, "we shall come
to the Valley of the Rocks."
"I don't care where we come to, my dear, as long as we get to a place
where we can talk in peace. I've a great deal to hear, you know."
She turned to study him. He was so familiar and yet such a complete
stranger. His voice was the same rather eager, imperative thing that she
remembered, and she thought that his eyes had not changed at all. But
for the rest he was bigger, astonishingly so; his shoulders, his face,
the whole of him, seemed overpoweringly large this morning. And he
looked old. In the bright light she could see that his face was deeply
lined, and that little pouches had formed under his eyes. But it struck
her that she had never seen a more utterly kind expression; it was a
charming age that had come upon Richard, an age full of sympathy and
tolerance. They passed the Convent of the Poor Clares with its white
walls inset with Della Robbia plaques of the Innocents in their
swaddling clothes. Richard glanced at them and smiled.
"I rather love them, don't you, Joan? They're a kind of symbol of the
childhood of the world."
She followed the direction of his eyes, but the plaques did not strike
her as being very interesting. Perhaps he missed some response in her,
for he fell silent.
When they reached the Valley of the Rocks he stood still and looked
about him. "I had no idea there was anything as beautiful as this in
England," he said.
She nodded. She too had always thought this valley very lovely, but
because of its loveliness it depressed her, filling her with strange
regrets. They sat down on a wide boulder. Somewhere to their right the
sea was talking to itself on the pebbles; on a high pinnacle of grey
rock some white goats leapt and gambolled. Joan looked at the deep blue
of the sky showing between the crags, and then at Richard.
His chin was resting on his hands, which were clasped over his stick,
and she noticed the hard, strong line of his jaw, and the roughened
texture of his neck.
Presently he turned to her. "Well, aren't you going to tell me?" he
asked.
"There's nothing to tell," she said uneasily.