ver imagined. She had given him an enormously
expanded comprehension of character, an insight into the secrets of his
own heart. And it was, perhaps, this new knowledge of what he himself
might do, that was impelling him to "take a hand." When he reached the
gate set in the wall of the garden, he had decided to take a hand at
once. He had a plan.

And it would have been a valuable experience for him, advancing him some
distance in spiritual development, had he been able to see clearly and
understandingly into her alert and shrewdly logical mind when he told
her his plan. For she saw through it in a flash. It was romantic, it was
risky, it was for himself. It might easily be for her ultimate good, yet
she saw he was not thinking of that at all. And because he was romantic,
because he visualized their departure as a flight into a fresh paradise,
they two alone, she turned to him with one of her ineffably gracious
gestures and loved him perhaps more sincerely than ever before. It was
this romantic streak in the dull fabric of his personality which had
attracted her, even if she had not perceived the emotional repose that
same dullness afforded her. It was like being in a calm harbour at
anchor compared with that other adventure, which had been a voyage
through storms and whirlpools, a voyage that would inevitably end in
shipwreck and stranding for her anyhow.

"I could do it," he was saying. "They don't know about it, but that boat
is the fastest they've got in the harbour and, with luck, it would be
easy to get away."

"To where?" she whispered, looking out into the fragrant gloom of the
high-walled garden below them.

"Anywhere," he exclaimed. "Once outside, we'd be picked up. Or we could
go to Phyros, and get home from there."

"Home?"

"Yes, home. England. I want you to come with me, stay with me, for good.
I can't--I can't do without you. I've been thinking every day, every
night. There's nobody else now."

She shot a glance at him. He was leaning forward in his chair, his eyes
fixed on the floor thinking, in a warm tumult of desire, of the
adventure. He saw the boat bounding through the fresh green wave-tops
into the deeper blue of the AEgean, he steering, with his arm around her
form which would be enfolded in that same big coat, making a dash for
freedom.

And as she patted his arm gently, she knew he was not thinking of her
save as a protagonist in a romantic episode. For to ask her to go to
England was