Still, if you have special objections to doing what I ask you, you can walk up and down rapidly." The girl glanced at him a moment and then lowered her eyes.

"Of course I was wrong.

Do you wish to hear that I am sorry ?" Winston, answering nothing, swung an ax round his head, and the girl kneeling beside the stove noticed the sinewy suppleness of his frame and the precision with which the heavy blade cleft the billets.

The ax, she knew, is by no means an easy tool to handle.

At last the red flame crackled, and, though she had not intended the question to be malicious, there was a faint trace of irony in her voice as she asked, "Is there any other thing you wish me to do ?" Winston flung two bundles of straw down beside the stove, and stood looking at her gravely.