No one had spoken to her in this way before, and for a moment she actually imagined the words sternly inscribed in a statute book. Now Clem thrust his hands into his pockets, which had the effect of making Nettie, repudiated, distractedly bring out her own.

“Watch for shells!” Kenny roared from the horizon.

Neither of them replied. Presently Clem laughed and looked at her, and touched her shoulder with his. “You’re a fool,” he said, more kindly.

“But what have I done wrong?”

“You got born twenty years too late.”

So immense and so complex did the gulf between them appear to her that it was a shock to have it simply stated as a matter of bad timing on her part. She had once been told that the earth, had it been slightly deflected on its axis, would have had no winter; and the possibility of a life shared with Clem appeared to her on the same scale of enormity and remote conjecture. Inexperienced, as he had pointed out, she had no means of knowing if his remarks were excessively unfeeling. She knew him in his daily life to be a reasonable man; from ignorance, she assumed that his conduct now would represent the same proportions of logic and compassion.

“Let’s go back,” he said. He cupped his hands and shouted to Kenny. Of Kenny’s response, only the word “shells” could be distinguished. They retraced the pattern of their steps on the sand, the wind now at their backs.

“The Bairds are coming for dinner,” Clem remarked.

“I met them once, last year.”

“Vernon is rather a bore, but I like Sarah. She has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.” He glanced round to be sure that Kenny was following.

Nettie, annoyed, said nothing. Her dim recollection of Mrs. Baird became tinged with antagonism—a plump, middle-aged woman bullied by her husband.

“I have never heard her say an unkind thing,” Clem continued, “about anybody.”

Nettie reflected that this, when said of a woman, made her sound totally uninteresting.

“You can entertain Vernon at dinner,” Clem said.

“How?”

“Simply by listening to him, I should think. He likes shy young things. Although you’re not exactly shy, are you? It’s rather as though you were afraid we might all find out what you think of us.” They climbed up a bank onto the road. “I wish we were alone,” he said, as though their entire conversation had been irrelevant. He opened a gate and held it for her.

“There’s Marion,” Nettie said.

Marion had come out of the house and was standing in the drive. She put her hands to her mouth and shouted to them.

“She can’t be collecting shells, too, can she?” Clem made a gesture of not hearing, and Marion shouted again. This time, as in the case of Kenny, one word only was distinct.

“The damned telephone,” he said. “You bring Kenny. I’ll go ahead.”