"Yes," he added after a
moment's consideration, "there's something horribly pathetic about it, I
agree."
And now, as they had walked some way from the grove of trees, and had
come to a rounded hollow very tempting to the back, they proceeded
to sit down, and the impression of the lovers lost some of its force,
though a certain intensity of vision, which was probably the result of
the sight, remained with them. As a day upon which any emotion has been
repressed is different from other days, so this day was now different,
merely because they had seen other people at a crisis of their lives.
"A great encampment of tents they might be," said Hewet, looking in
front of him at the mountains. "Isn't it like a water-colour too--you
know the way water-colours dry in ridges all across the paper--I've been
wondering what they looked like."
His eyes became dreamy, as though he were matching things, and reminded
Rachel in their colour of the green flesh of a snail. She sat beside him
looking at the mountains too. When it became painful to look any longer,
the great size of the view seeming to enlarge her eyes beyond their
natural limit, she looked at the ground; it pleased her to scrutinise
this inch of the soil of South America so minutely that she noticed
every grain of earth and made it into a world where she was endowed with
the supreme power.
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