wait
reproachfully the disturbance of their tranquillity. To-morrow came; the
dapple-gray horse was harnessed to the rope; and then slowly, slowly the
_Naiad_ glided forward, leaving astern the gray bridge, the long-purples
on the bank, and the swallows high in the silver air of the morning.
There was not yet any poignancy of parting; for the spire of Ladingford
church remained so long in sight that scarcely did they notice the slow
recession; and often, when they thought it was gone, the winding river
would show it to them again; and in the end, when really it seemed to
have vanished, by standing on the poop they could still make out where
now it pierced thinly the huge sky. Moreover, the contentment of that
imperceptible evanescence and of their dreaming progress down the young
Thames was plenary, lulling all regrets for a peace that seemed not yet
truly to be lost. The hay in the meadows along the banks was mostly
carried, and the cattle were magically fused with the July sunlight,
curiously dematerialized like the creatures of a mirage. If a human
voice was audible, it was audible deep in the green distance and
belonged to the landscape as gently as the murmurous water scalloping
the bows. Sometimes, indeed, they would pass late mowers who leaned upon
their scythes and waved good fortune to the journey, but mostly it was
all an emptiness of air and grass.

"If only this young Thames flowed on for ever!" said Guy.

He and Pauline were leaning over the rail of the barge, and Guy felt a
sudden impulse to snatch at the bank rich in that moment with yellow
loosestrife, and by his action arrest for ever the progress of the
barge, so that for ever they would stay like the lovers on a Grecian
urn.

"And really," Guy went on, as already the banks of yellow loosestrife
were become banks of long-purples, "there is no reason why for us in a
way this river should not flow on for ever. Dear, everything had seemed
so perishable before I found you. Pauline, you don't think I ought to
surrender my intention, do you? I mean, you don't think I ought to go
away from Plashers Mead?"

Guy went on to tell her about the decision he had taken on the day the
visit to Ladingford was arranged.

"But it would have been dreadful to miss this time," Pauline declared.

"Oh, I felt it would be impossible," he agreed. "But even if our
marriage is postponed for another year, you do think I ought to stick it
out here, don't you? And really, you