fine!"

"No; I 'm staying on," said Shelton.

"Ah!" said the stained-glass man, "charming people, the Dennants!"

Shelton, reddening slowly, turned his head away; he picked a gooseberry,
and muttered, "Yes."

"The eldest girl especially; no nonsense about her. I thought she was a
particularly nice girl."

Shelton heard this praise of Antonia with an odd sensation; it gave him
the reverse of pleasure, as though the words had cast new light upon
her. He grunted hastily,

"I suppose you know that we 're engaged?"

"Really!" said the stained-glass man, and again his bright, clear,
iron-committal glance swept over Shelton--"really! I didn't know.
Congratulate you!"

It was as if he said: "You're a man of taste; I should say she would go
well in almost any drawing-room!"

"Thanks," said Shelton; "there she' is. If you'll excuse me, I want to
speak to her."

CHAPTER XXIV

PARADISE

Antonia, in a sunny angle of the old brick wall, amid the pinks and
poppies and cornflowers, was humming to herself. Shelton saw the
stained-glass man pass out of sight, then, unobserved, he watched her
smelling at the flowers, caressing her face with each in turn, casting
away spoiled blossoms, and all the time humming that soft tune.

In two months, or three, all barriers between himself and this
inscrutable young Eve would break; she would be a part of him, and he a
part of her; he would know all her thoughts, and she all his; together
they would be as one, and all would think of them, and talk of them, as
one; and this would come about by standing half an hour together in a
church, by the passing of a ring, and the signing of their names.

The sun was burnishing her hair--she wore no hat flushing her cheeks,
sweetening and making sensuous her limbs; it had warmed her through and
through, so that, like the flowers and bees, the sunlight and the air,
she was all motion, light, and colour.

She turned and saw Shelton standing there.

"Oh, Dick!" she said: "Lend me your hand-kerchief to put these flowers
in, there 's a good boy!"

Her candid eyes, blue as the flowers in her hands, were clear and cool
as ice, but in her smile was all the warm profusion of that corner; the
sweetness had soaked into her, and was welling forth again. The sight
of those sun-warmed cheeks, and fingers twining round the flower-stalks,
her pearly teeth, and hair all fragrant, stole the reason out of
Shelton. He stood before her, weak about the