freedom in manner, extreme cleanliness of person, and a certain indescribable timidity
and precision with his knife and fork which might be the relic of days when meat was
rare, and the way of handling it by no means gingerly.
The two parties who were strolling about and losing their unity now came together, and
joined each other in a long stare over the yellow and green patches of the heated
landscape below. The hot air danced across it, making it impossible to see the roofs of a
village on the plain distinctly. Even on the top of the mountain where a breeze played
lightly, it was very hot, and the heat, the food, the immense space, and perhaps some less
well-defined cause produced a comfortable drowsiness and a sense of happy relaxation in
them. They did not say much, but felt no constraint in being silent.
"Suppose we go and see what's to be seen over there?" said Arthur to Susan, and the pair
walked off together, their departure certainly sending some thrill of emotion through the
rest.
"An odd lot, aren't they?" said Arthur. "I thought we should never get 'em all to the top.
But I'm glad we came, by Jove! I wouldn't have missed this for something."
"I don't _like_ Mr. Hirst," said Susan inconsequently. "I suppose he's very clever, but
why should clever people be so--I expect he's awfully nice, really," she added,
instinctively qualifying what might have seemed an unkind remark.
"Hirst? Oh, he's one of these learned chaps," said Arthur indifferently. "He don't look as
if he enjoyed it. You should hear him talking to Elliot. It's as much as I can do to follow
'em at all. . . . I was never good at my books."
With these sentences and the pauses that came between them they reached a little hillock,
on the top of which grew several slim trees.
"D'you mind if we sit down here?" said Arthur, looking about him. "It's jolly in the
shade--and the view--" They sat down, and looked straight ahead of them in silence for
some time.
"But I do envy those clever chaps sometimes," Arthur remarked. "I don't suppose they
ever . . ." He did not finish his sentence.
"I can't see why you should envy them," said Susan, with great sincerity.
"Odd things happen to one," said Arthur. "One goes along smoothly enough, one thing
following another, and it's all very jolly and plain sailing, and you think you know all
about it, and suddenly one doesn't know where one is a bit, and everything seems
different from what it used to seem. Now to-day, coming up that path, riding behind you,
I seemed to see everything as if--" he paused and plucked a piece of grass up by the roots.
He scattered the little lumps of earth which were sticking to the roots--"As if it had a kind
