came to meet the shuffling noise of the pits, the dark, fuming stress of the town opposite, and they two walked the blue strip of water-way, the ribbon of sky between.

He was looking, Ursula thought, very beautiful, because of a flush of sunburn on his hands and face. He was telling her how he had learned to shoe horses and select cattle fit for killing.

“Do you like to be a soldier?” she asked.

“I am not exactly a soldier,” he replied.

“But you only do things for wars,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Would you like to go to war?”

“I? Well, it would be exciting. If there were a war I would want to go.”