s
joy."

They had come to the weir above the village, and the thunder of riotous
cool water was heavy in the air. Trees dipped into the translucent
stream with slender trailing branches, and the meadow where they stood
was starred with midsummer blossomings. Larks shot up caroling into the
crystal dome of blue, and a thousand voices of June sang round them.
Frank, bare-headed as was his wont, with his coat slung over his arm
and his shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbow, stood there like some
beautiful wild animal with eyes half-shut and mouth half-open, drinking
in the scented warmth of the air. Then suddenly he flung himself face
downward on the grass at the edge of the stream, burying his face in
the daisies and cowslips, and lay stretched there in wide-armed
ecstasy, with his long fingers pressing and stroking the dewy herbs of
the field. Never before had Darcy seen him thus fully possessed by his
idea; his caressing fingers, his half-buried face pressed close to the
grass, even the clothed lines of his figure were instinct with a
vitality that somehow was different from that of other men. And some
faint glow from it reached Darcy, some thrill, some vibration from that
charged recumbent body passed to him, and for a moment he understood as
he had not understood before, despite his persistent questions and the
candid answers they received, how real, and how realized by Frank, his
idea was.

Then suddenly the muscles in Frank's neck became stiff and alert, and
he half-raised his head, whispering, "The Pan-pipes, the Pan-pipes.
Close, oh, so close."

Very slowly, as if a sudden movement might interrupt the melody, he
raised himself and leaned on the elbow of his bent arm. His eyes opened
wider, the lower lids drooped as if he focused his eyes on something
very far away, and the smile on his face broadened and quivered like
sunlight on still water till the exultance of its happiness was
scarcely human. So he remained, motionless and rapt for some minutes,
then the look of listening died from his face, and he bowed his head
satisfied.

"Ah, that was good," he said. "How is it possible you did not hear? Oh,
you poor fellow! Did you really hear nothing?"

A week of this outdoor and stimulating life did wonders in restoring to
Darcy the vigour and health which his weeks of fever had filched from
him, and as his normal activity and higher pressure of vitality
returned, he seemed to himself to fall even more under th