main road by a lane past a clump
of beeches and drew up at the gate of a lonely house, built of very old
red brick, and covered by Virginia creeper just turning--a house with an
ingle-nook and low, broad chimneys. Before it was a walled, neglected
lawn, with poplars and one large walnut-tree. The sunlight seemed to
have collected in that garden, and there was a tremendous hum of bees.
Above the trees, the downs could be seen where racehorses, they said,
were trained. Summerhay had the keys of the house, and they went in. To
Gyp, it was like a child's "pretending"--to imagine they were going to
live there together, to sort out the rooms and consecrate each. She
would not spoil this perfect day by argument or admission of the need for
a decision. And when he asked:

"Well, darling, what do you think of it?" she only answered:

"Oh, lovely, in a way; but let's go back to the river and make the most
of it."

They took boat at 'The Bowl of Cream,' the river inn where Summerhay was
staying. To him, who had been a rowing man at Oxford, the river was
known from Lechlade to Richmond; but Gyp had never in her life been on
it, and its placid magic, unlike that of any other river in the world,
almost overwhelmed her. On this glistening, windless day, to drift along
past the bright, flat water-lily leaves over the greenish depths, to
listen to the pigeons, watch the dragon-flies flitting past, and the fish
leaping lazily, not even steering, letting her hand dabble in the water,
then cooling her sun-warmed cheek with it, and all the time gazing at
Summerhay, who, dipping his sculls gently, gazed at her--all this was
like a voyage down some river of dreams, the very fulfilment of felicity.
There is a degree of happiness known to the human heart which seems to
belong to some enchanted world--a bright maze into which, for a moment
now and then, we escape and wander. To-day, he was more than ever like
her Botticelli "Young Man," with his neck bare, and his face so
clear-eyed and broad and brown. Had she really had a life with another
man? And only a year ago? It seemed inconceivable!

But when, in the last backwater, he tied the boat up and came to sit with
her once more, it was already getting late, and the vague melancholy of
the now shadowy river was stealing into her. And, with a sort of sinking
in her heart, she heard him begin:

"Gyp, we MUST go away together. We can never stand it going on apart,
snatching hour