Advancing a few paces into this gigantic vinery, Claude
found the one main aisle intersected by numerous cross-
aisles in any of which Rosie might be working. He
pushed his way slowly, partly because the warm air
heavy with pollen made him faint, and partly because
this dose pressure of facile, triumphant nature had on his
nerves a suggestion of the menacing. On the pathway
of soft, dark loam his steps fell noiselessly.
When he came upon Rosie she was buried in the depths
of an almost imperceptible cross-aisle and at the end re-
mote from the center. As her back was toward him and
she had not heard his approach, he watdied her for a
minute in silence. His quick eye noticed that she wore a
blue-green cotton stuff, with leaf-green bdt and collar^

199



THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS

that made her the living dement of her background, and
that her movements and attitudes were of the kind to
display the exquisite lines of her body. She was picking
delicately the pale little blossoms and letting them flutter
to the ground. Her way was strewn with the frail
yellow things already b^;inning to wither and shrivel,
adding their portion of earth unto earth, to be transmuted
to life unto life with the next rotation in planting.
