Howard, side by side with Maud, gazed in
silence. Mr. Sandys identified landmarks with a map. "How nice it
is to see a bit of the world!" said Maud, "and how happy and
contented it all looks. It seems odd to think of men and women down
there, creeping about their work, going to and fro as usual, and
not aware that they are being looked down upon like this. It all
seems a very simple business."
"Yes," said Howard, "that is the strange thing. It does seem so
simple and tranquil! and yet one knows that down there people have
their troubles and anxieties--people are ill, are dying--are
wondering what it all means, why they are set just there, and why
they have so short a time to stay!"
"I suppose it all fits into itself," said Maud, "somehow or other.
I don't think that life really contradicts itself!"
"I don't know," said Howard, with a sudden access of dreariness;
"that is exactly what it DOES seem to do--that's the misery of it!"
The girl looked at him but did not speak; he gave her an uneasy
smile, and she presently turned away and looked over her father's
map.
They went down and lunched on a green bank among the fern, under
some old oaks. The sunlight fell among the glades; a flock of tits,
chirruping and hunting, rushed past them and plunged downward into
the wood. They could hear a dove in the high trees near them,
crooning a song of peace and infinite content. Mr. Sandys, stung by
emulation, related a long story, interspersed with imitations, of
his undergraduate days; and Howard was content to sit and seem to
listen, and to watch the light pierce downwards into the silent
woodland.
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