with each of hers in turn. 'Go into the garden; she is there. Mind, I
rely on you!'

Sanin went into the garden.

Gemma was sitting on a garden-seat near the path, she was sorting a
big basket full of cherries, picking out the ripest, and putting them
on a dish. The sun was low--it was seven o'clock in the evening--and
there was more purple than gold in the full slanting light with which
it flooded the whole of Signora Roselli's little garden. From time
to time, faintly audibly, and as it were deliberately, the leaves
rustled, and belated bees buzzed abruptly as they flew from one
flower to the next, and somewhere a dove was cooing a never-changing,
unceasing note. Gemma had on the same round hat in which she had
driven to Soden. She peeped at Sanin from under its turned-down brim,
and again bent over the basket.

Sanin went up to Gemma, unconsciously making each step shorter, and
... and ... and nothing better could he find to say to her than to ask
why was she sorting the cherries.

Gemma was in no haste to reply.

'These are riper,' she observed at last, 'they will go into jam, and
those are for tarts. You know the round sweet tarts we sell?'

As she said those words, Gemma bent her head still lower, and her
right hand with two cherries in her fingers was suspended in the air
between the basket and the dish.