ious to discover my very own work, and to do it in my very own
way.

The picture of that old English house, with its panelled rooms, set in a
surrounding wealth of flowers and green, gripped hold of my imagination;
but here was an odd thing. It was powerless to banish another picture,
in which there was no rose and no blue, but only dull neutral tints--the
picture of a basement flat in a grey London road, with electric burners
instead of sun, and for view, a vista of passing feet belonging to
bodies cut off from sight.

I could not, even for Charmion, give up the prospect of that flat, and
all that it had come to mean; but--let me acknowledge it honestly--it
was balm and relief to know that I could have a means of escape, and
that at culminating moments of weariness, when everything seemed wry and
disappointing, and the whole weight of seven storeys seemed to be
pressing down on my brains, I could bang my door, turn the key, and fly
off to peace and beauty, and a healing pandering to personal tastes!

Woman is a complex character, and I am no better than my kind. I feel
it in me to be an angel of self-denial and patience for, say, the third
of the year! I know for a certain fact that I should have a bad lapse
if I tried to keep it up for the remaining thirds. Now, thanks to
Charmion, the way was made easy, and I could put my hand to the plough
without fear of drawing back.

I leapt out of bed in a tingle of excitement. Impossible to lie still
when things were happening at such a rapid rate. The sun was shining,
and, looking at a belt of trees in the distance, I could catch a faint
shimmer of green. It is perhaps the most intoxicating moment of the
year, when that first gleam of spring greets the eye, and this special
year it held an added exhilaration, for it seemed to speak of the
budding of fresh personal life.

I laughed; I sang; the depression of the last weeks fell from me like a
cloak, and I faced the future glad and undismayed. With the reading of
that letter had come an end to indecision. I now knew exactly what I
was about to do. Write to Charmion, and fix the earliest possible date
for a meeting in town. From town we would inspect Pastimes, the while I
instituted inquiries for a suitable flat. The two homes secured, I
would then return to The Clough, and divide my furniture into two
batches, send them off to their several destinations, and follow myself,
hot foot. It would take some time to p