Shall I go and see if I can find them?" said Philip.

It was a relief to talk about practical things.

"Well, it wouldn't be a bad idea, I must say.... There's mother coming."

Then, as he got up, she looked at him without embarrassment.

"Shall I come for a walk with you tonight when I've put the children to
bed?"

"Yes."

"Well, you wait for me down by the stile, and I'll come when I'm ready."

He waited under the stars, sitting on the stile, and the hedges with their
ripening blackberries were high on each side of him. From the earth rose
rich scents of the night, and the air was soft and still. His heart was
beating madly. He could not understand anything of what happened to him.
He associated passion with cries and tears and vehemence, and there was
nothing of this in Sally; but he did not know what else but passion could
have caused her to give herself. But passion for him? He would not have
been surprised if she had fallen to her cousin, Peter Gann, tall, spare,
and straight, with his sunburned face and long, easy stride. Philip
wondered what she saw in him. He did not know if she loved him as he
reckoned love. And yet? He was convinced of her purity. He had a vague
inkling that many things had combined, things that she felt though was
unconscious of, the intoxication of the air and the hops and the night,
the healthy instincts of the natural woman, a tenderness that overflowed,
and an affection that had in it something maternal and something sisterly;
and she gave all she had to give because her heart was full of charity.

He heard a step on the road, and a figure came out of the darkness.

"Sally," he murmured.

She stopped and came to the stile, and with her came sweet, clean odours
of the country-side. She seemed to carry with her scents of the new-mown
hay, and the savour of ripe hops, and the freshness of young grass. Her
lips were soft and full against his, and her lovely, strong body was firm
within his arms.

"Milk and honey," he said. "You're like milk and honey."

He made her close her eyes and kissed her eyelids, first one and then the
other. Her arm, strong and muscular, was bare to the elbow; he passed his
hand over it and wondered at its beauty; it gleamed in the darkness; she
had the skin that Rubens painted, astonishingly fair and transparent, and
on one side were little golden hairs. It was the arm of a Saxon goddess;
but no immortal had that exquisite, homely naturalness; and Philip