Page 415 - sons-and-lovers

looked nice. She walked with hesitating steps alongside
Paul, bowing and turning away from him. Dowdy in dress,
and drooping, she showed to great disadvantage. He could
scarcely recognise her strong form, that seemed to slumber
with power. She appeared almost insignificant, drown-
ing her stature in her stoop, as she shrank from the public
gaze.
The Castle grounds were very green and fresh. Climb-
ing the precipitous ascent, he laughed and chattered, but
she was silent, seeming to brood over something. There was
scarcely time to go inside the squat, square building that
crowns the bluff of rock. They leaned upon the wall where
the cliff runs sheer down to the Park. Below them, in their
holes in the sandstone, pigeons preened themselves and
cooed softly. Away down upon the boulevard at the foot of
the rock, tiny trees stood in their own pools of shadow, and
tiny people went scurrying about in almost ludicrous im-
portance.
‘You feel as if you could scoop up the folk like tadpoles,
and have a handful of them,’ he said.
She laughed, answering:
‘Yes; it is not necessary to get far off in order to see us
proportionately. The trees are much more significant.’
‘Bulk only,’ he said.
She laughed cynically.
Away beyond the boulevard the thin stripes of the metals
showed upon the railway-track, whose margin was crowd-
ed with little stacks of timber, beside which smoking toy
engines fussed. Then the silver string of the canal lay at ran-

1 Sons and Lovers