"Miriam? She said I was a baby of four, and that I always HAD battled
her off."
Clara pondered over this for a time.
"But you have really been going with her for some time?" she asked.
"Yes."
"And now you don't want any more of her?"
"No. I know it's no good."
She pondered again.
"Don't you think you've treated her rather badly?" she asked.
"Yes; I ought to have dropped it years back. But it would have been no
good going on. Two wrongs don't make a right."
"How old ARE you?" Clara asked.
"Twenty-five."
"And I am thirty," she said.
"I know you are."
"I shall be thirty-one--or AM I thirty-one?"
"I neither know nor care. What does it matter!"
They were at the entrance to the Grove. The wet, red track, already
sticky with fallen leaves, went up the steep bank between the grass.
On either side stood the elm-trees like pillars along a great aisle,
arching over and making high up a roof from which the dead leaves fell.
All was empty and silent and wet. She stood on top of the stile, and he
held both her hands.
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