Steve Hanks Country Comfort painting

Steve Hanks Country Comfort paintingClaude Monet The Luncheon paintingClaude Monet Terrace at St Adresse painting
himself to take the blow. I hit him on the breastbone; we each fell backwards, sitting hard in the peat. Max laid his hand on the struck place. We sat for some moments, breathing loudly.
Presently I said, "I wish I'd died before I said those things."
Max shook his head. "What I know, now you wish you didn't say it."
I was too empty for tears. "I'm sorry I hit you."
"I know that."
"Can you forgive me?" I asked it pretty sullenly.
"Sure I can. But I don't, sir. Not till it's good for you."
A small resentment came then and gave us strength to pick ourselves up from the floor. Bitterly consoled I said, "I see you don't love me," and Max was enabled to put his arm across my shoulders.
"Idiot. Too much. I love you is what. Forgiveness you don't ask for like a present; you win it like a prize."
I believed that then. How sharp the smell of him was. He chuckled at the flare of my nostrils and pressed me to his bucky fleece.