our, all whispering, laughing, chattering, and drinking tea.

On the terrace in front of the big red house were other tables with
white covers under awnings like huge sunshades, where people who could
afford the terrace sat in splendor and in isolation and listened to the
music, played on the veranda, of violins and cello and piano.

Ransome and Winny and the children chose a pink-covered table on the
lawn under a holly tree in a place all by themselves. And they had tea
there, such a tea as stands out forever in memory, beautiful and
solitary. What the children didn't have for tea, Ranny said, was not
worth mentioning.

And after tea they sat in luxurious folding-chairs under the terrace and
listened to the violins, the cello, and piano. Other people were doing
the same thing as if they had been invited to do it, as if they were all
one party, with somewhere a friendly host and hostess imploring them to
be seated, to be happy and to make themselves at home.

And down the slope of the lawn, Stanny and Dossie rolled over and over
in the joy of life. And up the slope they toiled, laughing, to roll
interminably down.

And the moments while they rolled were golden, priceless to Ranny.
Winny, seated beside him on her chair, watched them rolling.

"It's Stanny's knickers," she said, "that I can't get over!"

"I don't want to hear of them again" (the golden moments were so few).
"You make me wish I hadn't brought those kids."

"Oh, Ranny!" Her eyes were serious and reproachful.

"Well--I can't get you to myself one minute."

"But aren't we having quite a happy day?" she said. "What with the
beautiful flowers and the music and the Emu--"

"You were sorry, Winky, for that disgraceful bird, and you're not a bit
sorry for me."

"Why should I be?"

"My case is similar."

Her eyes were serious still, but round the corners of her mouth a little
smile was playing in secret by itself. She didn't know it was there, or
she never would have let it play.

"Don't you know that I want to say things to you?"

She looked at him and was frightened by the hunger in his eyes.

"Not now, Ranny," she said. "Not yet."

"Why not?"

"I want"--she was desperate--"I want to listen to the music."

At that moment the violins and the cello were struggling together in a
cry of anguish and of passion.

"You _don't_," he said, savagely.

He was right. She didn't. The music, yearning and struggling, tore at
her heart, set her nerves