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Armstrong Subero
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While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true
and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the
editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any
errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no
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herein.
Linus said this while replying on the Linux Kernel mailing list on
August 25, 2000. This reply has become a famous quote among
programmers. It is used by developers whenever they don’t want to
read anything and instead just jump into coding. This approach is
particularly taken by novices and poorly self-taught programmers.
They don’t plan, they think they know more than everyone, and they
think programming is all about the code. This couldn’t be further from
the truth. Code simply expresses your thoughts to solve a problem.
Nothing more. Therefore, the more you know, the more you can apply
to solve a problem.
Data structures and algorithms are simply more things to know to
apply to solve your problems. Despite some people using them
interchangeably, data structures and algorithms are actually very
different things. It is possible to learn data structures and algorithms
without touching a programming language. Programming essentially
consists of thinking algorithmically and knowing the syntax of the
programming language to solve problems. In this book, we will focus on
thinking algorithmically and avoid learning the syntax of any
programming language.
Before we discuss data structures and algorithms, I think we should
talk a little about data. Data can mean different things depending on the
discipline you are currently occupied with. However, data within the
context of this book refers to any information that is stored on your
machine or that is being handled or processed by it. Data should not be
confused with information, which is data that has been processed;
however, within the context of computing, many developers may use
these terms independently to mean the same thing.
Data Structures
A data structure is a concept we use to describe ways to organize and
store types of data. Data structures are important because they not only
provide a way of storing and organizing data but also provide a way of
identifying data within the structure; additionally, they show the
relationships of the data within the structure. It is best to illustrate
what a data structure is with an example.
For example, let’s say we have some footwear, as depicted in Figure
1-1. We have two boots and two shoes arranged alternately.
Algorithms
An algorithm is a method of solving a problem by applying a sequence
of steps that will always work to solve the type of problem it was
designed to solve. Another way of saying this is that an algorithm is
simply a method of solving a problem in an ordered manner. We can
even shorten it further to say an algorithm is a procedure. Many people
may have expanded or diminished perspectives to describe what an
algorithm is, but this definition will work for our understanding.
One thing everyone will agree on is that algorithms are logical steps
to accomplish a task. To accomplish this, an algorithm must be simple,
precise, and unambiguous. Though some programmers focus on using
esoteric features of programming languages that make an algorithm
hard to read for other programmers, the simpler and more intuitive an
algorithm is, the more powerful and useful it will be.
We can describe algorithms with natural languages such as English,
pseudocode, or a programming language. We can discuss algorithms at
great length; however, it is best to see how algorithms work with a good
example. In our example, we can show how algorithms operate with a
pure English description, with no code needed.
We can gain an understanding of algorithms by looking at one in
action. Let’s say you need to put some fruit on a plate. You would, of
course, grab a plate and put some fruit on it, right? Well, imagine you
were describing these same steps to a robot. How would you do it? You
would tell the robot to do something like the following:
1. Go to the cupboard.
This seems like a logical sequence of steps, until you look around
the kitchen and realize that the robot left the cupboard door open. So,
you decide to add another step to the algorithm, as shown here:
1. Go to the cupboard.
You watch the robot run through the new steps, only to realize that
the robot is stuck at step 6, unable to put any fruit on the plate because
the fruit bowl has a tomato and the robot doesn’t know if a tomato is a
fruit or a vegetable. This is where data structures come into play for
working with algorithms.
Primitive Types
In the previous section, we talked about data structures and algorithms.
We said that a data structure stores and organizes data that algorithms
then process to get some output. We also said that data is information
stored on your machine or that is being processed by it. What we didn’t
say is that this data can be of different types.
Data needs to be of different types because a computer is a very
specific device. We have all heard the phrase “garbage in garbage out”
(GIGO) . This term gives us only part of the picture. We must realize that
a computer is an input-output device, yes, but it is also a device that
performs processing on data before it is output. This means we can put
good data in and still get garbage out.
This can happen in two ways. The most obvious way is that the
computer will perform an error in the processing of the problem (our
algorithm is bad). The other way is that if we fail to tell the computer
what type of data it is working on, then it will not know what to do and
will still output garbage. This will occur even if our algorithm is good,
as the algorithm is expecting data of a certain type.
This seems so simple, yet it is so important. In fact, it is so primitive
that we have a name for telling the computer what type of data types
we are working on. We call this the primitive data type.
A data type will tell our machine the attributes of the data we are
using and what we intend to do with the data. There are many data
types in computing, but the primitive data type is the most basic type
there is in your programming language of choice. It is so basic that it
usually forms part of the language itself and is usually built into the
language.
From these primitive languages, we get other data types. Though
most programming languages will have their own names for the data
types, they all fall into one of the following from the C-based languages.
I call them the “Big Four” because from these big four cornerstones,
everything else is built upon.
Sometimes these data types are also called atomic data types simply
because you cannot divide them into a lower-level type; they are as low
as a data type can get.
These are the four types of primitive data types:
Boolean
Character
Integer
Floating-point number
These four basic data structures tell your computer what type of
data you are working on. Let’s look at each of them in detail now and
get a good understanding of what they are.
Boolean
The Boolean primitive data type is the first one we will look at. The
Boolean type is known as a logical data type, having two possible
values: True and False, 0 and 1, or ON and OFF.
At the heart of classical computing is the Boolean data type.
Classical computers have a processor that consists of millions of
transistors that turn on or off. Based on them being on or off, we get all
sorts of amazing operations, storage, and all the mechanisms you can
think about in classical computing. The binary running in the
arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and the instruction register consists of
simply 0s and 1s. The concept of ON and OFF is so powerful that it
translates into basically all programming languages in one form or
another.
While it is not necessarily pertinent to our discussion on the
Boolean data type, it is handy to know that in the realm of quantum
computing there exists quantum bits called qubits . While in the realm
of classical computing the “hard on” and “hard off” Boolean type is
standard, quantum computers have qubits that are neither 0 nor 1 but
are in a state of superposition having both states simultaneously.
Character
The next item on our list is the character . Classical computers work on
binary bits of information and prefer to crunch numbers. Humans, on
the other hand, prefer to work with the natural language of their choice.
This is where characters come in.
Us humans find it difficult to remember data by its binary sequence
of representation. As such, characters can be used to give us a more
understandable and easier-to-remember version of this sequence of
binary bits. When we combine this sequence of characters into strings,
it makes this much better. For example, the variable cat is more
readable, recognizable, and memorable written as cat than as
01100011 01100001 01110100. Characters are used to make up
strings and have differing encodings depending on the machine you are
using.
Integer
The computer is all about numbers, and no data type is better fit to
represent numbers than the integer. An integer refers to a
mathematical number that does not have any fractional constituent, for
example, 6 or 7.
The only distinction between integers in mathematics and integers
in computer science is that in mathematics integers, unless they belong
to a finite subset, are infinite. In computing, because of limitations in
processor architecture and memory, integers are not infinite.
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Floating-Point Number
The floating-point number can be thought of as an integer with a
fractional constituent. This is the type of number that people refer to as
decimals, for example, 6.5 or 7.1. They are called floating point because
the little dot (.) called the radix point can float, or move, to accurately
represent the number we are displaying.
Floating-point numbers are usually described as either single
precision or double precision. Single-precision floating-point numbers
are represented with a 32-bit word, whereas double-precision numbers
are represented by a 64-bit word. Usually single-precision floating-
point numbers are called floats, and double-precision floating-point
numbers are called doubles . There are also floating-point numbers that
require 128-bit word representations that are called decimals .
Functions
Before we go further, I would like to take a moment to discuss an
important mathematical concept that is intertwined with computer
science, that of the function. Note that the mathematical function we
are discussing shouldn’t be confused with functions in programming,
which refer to a section of code that performs some task.
In mathematics, a function is an expression that maps an
independent variable to a dependent variable.
We call the input to the function the domain, and we call the output
the range. Each domain element can be mapped to one, and only one,
element in the range. The function determines which element at the
domain gets mapped to which at the range.
In Figure 1-4 we have a function that matches numbers on the
domain with letters in the range.
Figure 1-4. Mathematical function
The function can be visualized as a black box that takes an input,
does some processing, and gives an output (kind of sounds like a
computer, doesn’t it?). Look at Figure 1-5 to see the essence of what a
function is.
“as Theo notices everything. Don’t let her bag all the sweets,
though.”
“Have just got in from lunch, which I had with my uncle. He was
full of talk; you can imagine it!”
(I can.)
“I also saw two other men whom I’d got to meet, and as a result
of this, I think I’ve managed to get through the business that was
keeping me. So I shall be down at the end of the week after all;
cheers for some fresh air and a dip! Please be very glad to see me,
will you? as Theo—but I put that before.
“Just before I went out to lunch a very rum thing happened: at
least, I thought it was rum until I found out what it was. I was
opening the door of my room when I heard, in the passage, your
voice, Nancy! Yes, your voice, with that little dare-devil tone you put
on sometimes, saying these extraordinary words: ‘I think it’s to the
Savoy that I’m going out with Mr. Waters to-day!’
“I couldn’t think what on earth was the meaning of it, with you
miles away in Anglesey.”
(What’s this? “Your” Billy? It can’t be. Oh, no. It’s his disgraceful
handwriting. It’s the “r” being scrawled into the “s” like that. “Yours,
Billy,” is how it really reads. How stupid of me not to see that at
once! Then there’s a bit across the top.)
“Six-forty train Porth Cariad on Saturday. You might write and tell
me how you do like the place; and you might answer at once, even
if it’s only for the girls to take it to the post.”
So, for the benefit of Blanche and Theo, I will write at once; I’ll do
it out here, in pencil on my pad, as I’ve so often taken down his own
letters. (One of these days I shall tell him how I loathed it, and how
utterly impossible his dictation was!)
(There! I wonder how he’ll like that. Will he think that it goes on
all through?)
“The lovely sweets really were appreciated; but I didn’t let Theo
bag them all, nor take the pale-blue satin tie-up to make a bow for
Cariad, which was what she wanted to do. So then she said of
course Nancy would want to keep that ribbon to tie round all your
letters. She does notice everything, doesn’t she?
“As for how I like this place, I simply love it, and the cottages—I’m
in the bigger one with your mother, and Theo and Blanche are
together in the other until you come—and I love the sand-hills with
the sea-holly and little prickly brambly roses and tiny purple pansies
growing all over them,”
(I might slip a pansy from this place that he’s fond of into the
envelope? No, I mightn’t. There’s no Theo to “notice” at his end.)
“and the cloud shadows on those hills opposite, and Mrs. Roberts,
with her sackcloth cooking-apron and her clogs and the boy’s cap
she wears; and Blodwen, even if all the English they know does
always seem to be all about you! And I should hate a pier-concert if
there was one. There’s everything here to make me quite happy.
Since this very hot weather’s come, the bathing is delicious. I
learned to swim when I was a little girl, thank you.”
“How was Mr. Albert Waters? Still chuckling and laughing ‘ho, ho!’
I expect.
“I laughed at your being taken in like that by Miss Robinson.
Yesterday morning I was almost taken in, by something that was like
you: a sharp tap against my bedroom window that might have been
a stone thrown up. But it was only a fat, speckly thrush cracking a
snail; there are always lots of them crawling out of that
southernwood bush by the door.
“Mrs. Roberts asks me to tell you,”
(What she said, in her speciously honeyed Welsh voice and with
her irresistible if toothless smile, was, “Tell your Cariad——” But I
needn’t put that.)
(Dear me, this is rather different from the blank sheet I might
have enclosed.... Anyhow, it mustn’t get any longer than his, so I’d
better stop now.)
“I will give this to Theo to post, and”
(No.)
(No, that sounds rather nasty; rather too like Manner B. Cross it
out.)
If a girl were the least bit inclined to fall in love with Billy Waters—
and I see now that some girls might be; though not, of course, any
girl of my type, capable of this kind of frank friendship that puts
anything else out of the question!—well, if she were, she’d find it
much easier to complete the process here at Porth Cariad than
anywhere else that I can imagine him.
Some men—generally the nicest—are so much more themselves in
the depths of the country. He is.
I noticed that the very first evening he arrived here, when I went
down to meet him—to keep up appearances before his family—at
this tiny station on the branch line. Before the train stopped I saw
his head and shoulders blocking up the open window of his
compartment in his hurry to arrive. Catching sight of me on the
platform, he took the pipe from between his strong white teeth and
flourished it over his head in greeting—his face one broad smile
because his holiday had begun; then the train slowed down; he was
out of the carriage door and taking a running stride towards me.
“Hullo, Nancy!” he said, and grasped my hands. “You came? I
wondered if you would. It’s very—appropriate of you. How are you?
You look very fit. A sun-bonnet, eh?”—It was a haymaker’s cotton
one, that I’d bought for a shilling and a ha’penny at the post office,
and rather becoming—“I’ve never seen you in a pink sun-bonnet
before.”
“You wouldn’t be likely to in Leadenhall Street,” I retorted. “How’s
the dear office?”
“I don’t know or care. I’m here to forget it,” he said gaily as we
left the station for the road between the sand-hills. “I think I shall
take to wearing a sun-bonnet myself!”
But what he wears here is just a soft white shirt with a turn-down
collar and a pair of loose grey flannel bags belted at the waist; no
hat at all—his hair has got to look as if it must be permanently
rumpled; no one from the office would recognize him! Even his eyes
seem a different colour; so much warmer and bluer for the
deepening of his tan. He drops a year a day from his age, too. When
one sees him striding about these sandy lanes, or terrifying his
mother by those efforts to walk on his hands in six foot of water in
the bay, or when he’s pretending to jabber back Welsh to Mrs.
Roberts and Blodwen, who openly adore him—yes, I can imagine
quite a number of people finding him positively attractive here in the
country.
In the country, too, as I’ve always heard, it’s so much easier to fall
in love than it is in town. Town, with its rush and racket and roar,
seems to insist that the things that really matter are getting on and
making money—or even the bare living for which half these grimy
crowds are struggling and toiling! But the country!—that has a way
of suggesting itself as a series of lovely backgrounds for a grouping
of Two, and of coaxing home the idea that all that matters is Love.
To a falling-in-love kind of person the country here would seem as
bad as Hamlet for being “so full of quotations” from every poet who
ever wrote about trysts, and gathering rosebuds, and loves in
valleys, and foolish, pretty nonsense of that sort. They’d be
reminded of it by every dance of a pair of blue butterflies over the
dunes; every spread of the rosy arms of sea-anemones in the pool
towards the incoming wave; and as for these other waves of scented
gold that are poured over all the waste ground hereabouts——
“It’s a blessing there’s such a lot of it out just now!” as Theo
remarked this morning at breakfast. “I suppose engaged people
would want to be where there was plenty of gorse!”
Whereat her brother and I exchanged glances, across the table, of
amused intelligence. For it’s all very well for this child to think she
can “chip” us with that old tag about kissing and the gorse in bloom.
We’ve only got to remember how little she suspects that the only
kiss between us is that “duty good night” one of Uncle Albert’s visit,
and the laugh is all on our side!
“You needn’t laugh, Billy,” Theo added. “You know you’re really
frightfully cross because you won’t be able to get Nancy all to
yourself this afternoon, with these people coming!”
It was the first I’d heard of any visitors, for I’d come down rather
late that morning. I hadn’t slept as well as I usually do. Outside the
window of my little sloping-ceilinged cottage bedroom the water, at
high tide, had seemed to make rather more noise than its usual soft
lap-lapping against the rocks. And then the moon, rising like a big
round primrose-coloured Chinese lantern in the star-sprinkled purple
sky over the Rivals on the other side of the Menai Straits, had
poured a flood of white radiance straight upon my bed, and I hadn’t
bothered to get up and pull down the yellow linen blind to shut it
out. I had wanted to feel the sea-scented night-breeze across my
face. So I had lain there, tossing a little between the snowy rough
country sheets, watching the square of light creeping inch by inch up
the wall, and thinking idly of all sorts of irrelevant things....
Of Cicely in Marconi Mansions....
Of “Smithie” at the office, and her boy. They didn’t prove much
truth in the theory that people fall more deeply in love in the
country. I saw again that crossing at the Bank, with the big motor-
buses skidding across the muddy road like beginners on skates; and
there, in the middle of the fog and the petrol-reek and the jostling
luncheon-hour crowds, those two anæmic, City-fied young faces
shone as radiantly as if the lovers walked the loneliest Eden that
ever was....
Of a school-friend of my own, now very happily married, who had
said to me, long ago: “An engagement, Monica, is such a skimpy
time! It’s made up of nothing but good-byes and good nights to the
person you most want to be always with!”
And of the difference between that sort of engagement and the
“arrangement” between myself and Billy Waters, which has
converted itself into such an entirely satisfactory and amusing
friendship....
The result was that I’d dropped off to sleep again after Blodwen’s
bang on my bedroom door, and that I’d been the last down at
breakfast.
“Who’s this that’s coming, Billy?” I asked. “Your Uncle Albert
again?”
“No, thank—I mean, no, not him,” said Billy. “Some French people
you haven’t met yet. They’re touring North Wales in their car. He’s a
man I’ve had a good deal to do with in business.”
“And she——” began Theo, stopping uncharacteristically short as
her brother went on, tapping a letter he held.
“I’ve just heard from him that they’re in Holyhead now, and
coming over here to look us up this afternoon. So that puts a
stopper on our plan of painting that figure-head for Mrs. Roberts
after lunch. We’ll have to see if we can get it done this morning
instead. Good thing I got that paint last night at the wheelwright’s.
Are you on, Nancy? Then, if you’re ready, we’ll start now, shall we?”
“Blanche and I don’t think we’ll come, thank you,” said Theodora
punctiliously.
“What, not until you’re asked?” laughed her brother, rummaging
for the paint-pots under the southernwood bush at the cottage door.
He gave me one pot and the brushes to carry, taking the other two
himself. “Well, good-bye, all!”
“Come back, then, Cariad!” called Blanche, but the little white dog
frisked unheedingly in circles ahead of us, across the shingle at the
edge of the cove, over a couple of sand-hills, then up the steps cut
in the turf of the cliff where the Roberts have set up a flagstaff and
the wooden woman.
* * * * *
We reached the flagstaff, and set down our pots of paint among
the buffets of gorse that had sprays of purple ling and blue scabious
growing through and making a bouquet of each.
Billy’s shirt-sleeves are always rolled up to the elbow; the sleeves
of my white cotton frock are three-quarter length; so we were both
equipped for work, though I’d refused the offer of Mrs. Roberts’
sackcloth apron. It was too coal-y and butter-y and paraffiny and
scented with hen! But here the heady warm fragrance of the gorse
almost drowned the smell of our paints.
“Scarlet, and black, and white? Scarlet for her hat and jacket, eh?”
suggested Billy. “And how are we going to paint her hands and face?
What colour’s flesh?”
“Some people say it’s just the colour of honeysuckle,” I answered
absently. I can’t be perfectly certain that he did retort so sharply,
below his breath, “Does he, indeed!” or that the name of Sydney
Vandeleur had been threatening to crop up once more between us.
Still, I was glad of the wide pink shelter of my sun-bonnet as I
added, in a matter-of-fact way, “You could get a sort of flesh-tint by
mixing a little of the red with the white paint, but I don’t think I
should. Suppose we leave the face and hands creamy-white as they
are?”
“Very well; and her lips red, and the jacket and that toque affair,
with more dabs of scarlet for the flowers in her bunch,” he said,
kneeling on the sun-warmed turf on the other side of the figure from
me, “with a black wing in her hat.”
“And her hair left as it is, too,” said I.
“No, no! I got this on purpose for her hair,” he said, and drew a
full brushful of tar-black paint across the carven and crinkly locks in
front, “she must be a brunette, this time.”
“Oh, and Mrs. Roberts will be so annoyed to see her without her
beautiful golden chignon,” I protested, working away with the scarlet
paint at the back of the jacket, “she’ll think she’s quite spoilt.”
“Nonsense; looks much better like this,” he declared. “A black-
haired woman looks so much more alive than the others. Like red
wine, dark grapes, crimson roses ... fairer colours are insipid,
washed-out-looking!”
“No woman thinks so,” said I. “You never hear of a blonde tinting
herself dark. It’s always the other way about!”
“I know one girl who wouldn’t change,” he argued, glancing over
the shoulder of the wooden woman at the border of dark hair
between my bonnet and my face. “You needn’t pretend you would,
miss! Now what are you smiling at?”
“Only something,” I said, “that I’d just remembered.”
“Yes? (You’re an unexpected sex, aren’t you?) Well, what was
this?”
“Only—look out, Billy, you’ll let that black drop run down the side
of her face—only something a girl I know said about fair men being
like weak tea!”
“Meaning to say, I suppose, that she didn’t think much of your
taste in fiancés?” suggested Billy Waters, with a mischievous laugh. I
laughed too. And for the several score of times since we have been
here together, I thought to myself what a delightful and unusual and
thoroughly satisfactory arrangement this friendship of ours had
turned out to be.
I never dreamed that at that very moment the life of that
friendship had about five more minutes to run.
“There!” said Billy, picking himself up and taking a few steps back
from the figure, to survey it, with his fair head on one side. “You
can’t say it isn’t an improvement. What would your friend say to that
coloured hair?”
“Strong tea,” I suggested flippantly. “Tea that’s stood too long!”
“You aren’t looking at it. Come over here and see!”
I straightened myself and went and stood beside him.
“As a matter of fact, Nancy, the lady’s got rather a look of you!”
And actually something in the contrast of the glistening black locks
against the creamy-pale face with the now scarlet-tinted lips might
have been vaguely characteristic of what, night and morning, I see
in my own mirror.
“Well, but I hope I don’t look as if I ‘made up’ my mouth!”
“Why, you don’t make it up, do you?”
“Of course not,” said I. And then I turned from looking at the
painted figure to the other deeper, tenderer colour of the sea
washing a strip of sand below the cliff.
“Oh, it is lovely here,” I sighed, revelling in the beauty of that and
the sky. “Did you ever see anything so blue as it is to-day?”
“Or so golden?” added Billy, nodding towards the hassocks of
gorse in full bloom. “I’ve never seen it like this before. D’you know
that there’s a Welsh proverb that calls this county ‘the land of
thriftless gold’? Rather pretty, isn’t it? It must have been wonderful
here in the spring; this is the second crop, you know. A man I know
once told me that it was like falling in love.”
“How d’you mean?” I asked, as he stopped. “Aren’t you going to
paint the wing in her hat while you’ve that brush full of black paint?”
“Presently.—Oh, yes, about that gorse. He said the first blooming
was more showy—more fuss made over it—first love, you know, and
all that; but that it was nothing like as sweet as the later time.
Should you agree with him, d’you think?”
“How should I know?” I retorted rather flippantly, to hide my
intense surprise that Billy should possess—let alone quote!—a friend
who sounded so utterly unlike himself. “You might know me well
enough by this time to see I’m not that sort of girl!”
“Which sort of girl? The kind who doesn’t fall in love a second
time?”
“The kind who doesn’t fall in love at all,” I said decidedly.
“Anyhow, I find the second blooming of the gorse, without any
metaphors, quite beautiful enough against that dragonfly-blue bit of
Bay!”
“Ah, yes! You’re fond of the effect of flowering plants against the
blue sea, as I think you mentioned, the evening my uncle dined at
The Lawn,” said Billy, teasingly and unexpectedly. “Only, didn’t you
specify oleanders and myrtles and the Riviera——”
“Oh, Billy! I never thought you’d do that,” I interrupted him with
real reproach. “No; I never thought you’d be so mean as to remind
me, ever again, of that ghastly evening! I didn’t!”
There was silence for a moment. He stared down at me. I
wouldn’t look at him. I turned to look at a brown velvet bee that was
buzzing some flattery or other into the golden ear of a gorse-
blossom near by. Then I heard him say slowly:
“‘Ghastly,’ you call it?”
“Well—! Of course!”
“I see,” he said, still more slowly. “You mean that it still rankles.
You haven’t forgotten.... You resent that still, in spite of agreeing to
be friends ... in spite of letting one suppose that—well! that it wasn’t
so sickeningly hard for you now, after all. You do bear a grudge
then, still. You mean—” It came out, the last thing I ever expected
to hear him mention!—“that about that kiss!”
“That?” I retorted quickly, and with my airiest laugh, for this
seemed the only way in which to face the paralysingly embarrassing
point he’d seen fit to raise again. “Oh, that! I never gave it a
thought, Billy! I quite understood! Besides, you couldn’t possibly call
that private-theatricals sort of peck a kiss, exactly!”
“No,” he returned, as quickly. “You couldn’t, could you?”
He took a step towards me, then caught me to him by the
shoulders, and for a second I thought he was going to gratify the
longing which I’d seen in his eyes any time during that first week of
my stay at The Lawn.
I thought he was going to shake me.
But no.
In quicker time than it can be told, his hands had flown from my
shoulders to the pink strings of my sun-bonnet; he’d untied them
and tossed the bonnet on to the nearest hassock of a gorse-bush.
He put both brown hands under my chin and turned my face up to
his. Before I could so much as gasp, he swooped down and kissed
me, muttering, “But what could you call this—and this—and this?”
Three times—greedily—on the mouth.
For a second I had to clutch at his shoulder to steady myself; for
sea and cliff and gorse seemed wheeling round me in swirls of blue
and green and gold.
Then I wrenched myself away and faced him—without seeing too
distinctly what was in front of my eyes.
“Don’t say anything to me,” I heard myself tell him, in a voice that
sounded unnaturally quiet and calm. “This—this can’t be forgiven.
Don’t ask.”
I heard him begin to say something about: “Do you think I am
made of——”
“Don’t speak to me again, please,” I said, still in that unnaturally
quiet voice. “Not again.”
I snatched up my sun-bonnet from the gorse-bush, rammed it
down over my hair, and tied the strings so tightly beneath my chin
that they nearly throttled me. Then I turned, saying, “I forbid you to
follow me,” and left him standing there between cliff and sky, beside
the wooden woman.
I walked on until I thought I was out of his sight, then I ran; ran
blindly across the cove and up the sandy path to the cottages.
On the doorstep of the larger one Theo was sitting, emptying her
white canvas shoes of sand on to the cobbles of the garden path.
“Hullo, Nancy! Do you know that Cariad was so bored with you
that he ran home?” she said. “What have you done with Billy the
Beloved? Is he——”
“Let me pass, please,” I said quietly, and walked swiftly into the
house. The kitchen door was open and Mrs. Roberts was laying the
table for the mid-day meal. She began, “Was you finiss paint the
——” but I couldn’t stop to speak to her. I ran up the rickety wooden
stairs to my bedroom. There isn’t a lock on the door; I looked. So I
just latched it, and went and sat down on my bed, with its
patchwork quilt of faded pinks and mauves. I began tracing with my
fingers the pattern made by the hexagonal patches of purple. I don’t
think I thought of anything at all.
And I don’t know how long I’d been sitting there before I heard
light steps on the staircase and a tap at the door. I raised my voice a
little.
“Don’t come in.”
“Nancy,”—it was Blanche—“dinner’s ready!”
“I don’t want any dinner. I am not coming down.”
“Oh!—What’s the matter, dear?”—with quick concern. “Are you ill?”
“No! I’m not ill!”
“Have you got a headache?”
“No! I haven’t got a headache. Only please go away. I don’t want
to see anybody.”
I heard her go softly downstairs again—then the kitchen door
opening, and a murmur of voices.
His voice.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The warm kitchen seemed full of people and their voices, and of a
mingled scent of brewing tea and warm butter and—could it be a
whiff of perfume: trèfle? The tea-table was crowded with Mrs.
Roberts’ gayest crockery, with her largest black teapot, with mounds
of yellow light-cakes and clusters of brown eggs and great slabs of
Welsh farmhouse bread-and-butter. In the middle a glass jug held a
bouquet of heather and honeysuckle and blue scabious. There was a
dish of damson jam, and a very golden, “shoppy” cake.
At the head of the table, Mrs. Waters was entertaining a stout,
sallow gentleman with a black moustache and a plaid tie, who was
talking French very fast and with a good deal of gesture. Blanche,
elbows on the table, was leaning eagerly across it to talk; opposite
to her were her brother, looking much as usual again, I saw, and
Theodora in a state of flushed animation, from whom, in the general
babble, I caught something that sounded like “tell Billy’s sweetheart
—” and between Theodora and him there sat, leaning back in her
chair and laughing gaily, a young girl in a wonderfully-cut and simple
get-up of flame-yellow and white and cream, with a swirl of feathery
yellow about her midnight black hair; one of the prettiest girls I’d
ever seen in my life. Ah! it was she who’d brought in that whiff of
clover-scent?
She was laughing up into his face.
And she was calling my official fiancé “Billy.”
CHAPTER XXIV
THAT GIRL