you go without me? You can if you wish to, you know.”
The words fell like clumps of lead on Valerie’s ears, and she must have shown something of what she felt. He turned his face away from her and stared out into the trees. The way he set his mouth, as if he were shutting off intolerably painful things from expression, upset her. She could never bear to hurt him. To his astonishment she got up from the table, and struggled into the hammock beside him and clung to him.
He turned to her and pressed her face against his own.
“What the devil is it, old girl? If anything is troubling you won’t you tell me?”
“I don’t want to go without you. I couldn’t go without you.”
“But you want to go?”
“Well, I feel I ought to do something.”
He said nothing to that, and they lay still for some time. Then she raised herself and looked at him.
“Please, dear, I’m silly. I really don’t want to go away at all.”
She got up and went in to change her clothes, and in a short time he heard her playing softly a berceuse of Chopin’s that he particularly loved.
He lay as she had left him, his cigarette burned out, his eyes watching the flitting of a fantail about the honeysuckle, and his mind working on the question as to how much she really did wish to go.
Two weeks later they stood in the early morning with a large portion of the population of Dargaville to see Bob and Johnson and a number of other men off to Auckland. Father Ryan was on board to accompany the men as far as the city. Valerie stood with Bob till the last minute. Dane kept away from them, talking to men from up the
