Through the meadow ran a
little stream, such as a boy of ten could leap; for the instant it stood
fire-red under the sun.
Sharlee, obtaining the floor for a moment, asked Queed how his own work
had been going. He told her that in one sense it had not been going at
all: not a chapter written from May to September.
"However," he said, with an unclouded face, "I am now giving six hours a
day to it. And it is just as well to go slow. The smallest error of
angle at the centre means a tremendous going astray at the
circumference. I--ahem--do not feel that my summer has been wasted, by
any means. You follow me? It is worth some delay to be doubly sure that
I put down no plus signs as minuses."
"Yes, of course. How beautiful that is out there, isn't it?"
His eyes followed hers over the sunset spaces. "No, it is too quiet, too
monotonous. If there must be scenery, let it have some originality and
character. You yourself are very beautiful, I think."
Sharlee started, almost violently, and colored perceptibly. If a
text-book in differential calculus, upon the turning of a page, had
thrown problems to the winds and begun gibbering purple poems of
passion, she could not have been more completely taken aback.
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