You soft gossamer beauty, I could crush you where you
hover; but you won't come and be crushed. Certainly, you are cruel."
_I die._ He avoided that. It was absurd. She thought for one moment that
he hinted it when he said, shrugging off his ranges of hot-house--"Good of
their kind, I fancy. But what good are they to me--a solitary beggar? I
never go into 'em, you know. I thought I should take an interest when I
had 'em put up. It looked like it--But now! who cares whether I go into
'em or not? Who cares whether I live or die?" There had been a pathetic
ring there.
She had murmured a gentle rebuke; her eyes had brimmed, reproaching him.
It was then that he had taken her hand, at the going-out from the fig-
house. "Ruth," he had said, "my kind, pretty Ruth." Then he stooped his
head and kissed her. Through three pairs of doors Glyde, in the
peachhouse, had seen the act, and paused in his spraying. It was over in a
minute. The pair strolled away and passed out of the walled-garden. Glyde,
who had turned very white, compressed his lips and went back to his work--
like a machine. Presently a light step made him start, look guardedly up,
watch and wait. Sanchia, bare-headed, fresh and _debonnaire_, came in,
like a stream of west wind.
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