d, without looking at him she
squeezed the fingers that gripped her arm.

In a moment his voice spoke in her ear. "Look here! Let's get away! Let's
get lost! It's the easiest thing in the world. We can't all hang together
in this crowd."

This was quite evident. The great marquee was crammed with people, and
already Fielding was piloting his wife to the opening at the other end.

"We must just look round," murmured Juliet, "for decency's sake."

"All right, my dear, look!" he said. "And when you've quite finished
we'll go out by the way we came and explore the gardens."

She threw him a glance that expressed acquiescence and a certain mead of
amused appreciation. For somehow Dick Green in his blue serge and straw
hat managed to look smarter if less immaculate than any of the
white-waistcoated band of local magnates around them. So--for decency's
sake--she prowled round the tent with Dick at her shoulder, admiring
everything she saw and forgetting as soon as she had admired. She told
herself that it was a day of such supreme happiness as could not come
twice in any lifetime, and because of it she lingered, refusing to hasten
the moment for which Dick had made provision.

"Haven't you had enough of it?" he said, at last.

And she answered him with a quivering laugh. "No, not nearly. I'm
spinning out every single second."

"Ah, but they won't wait," he said. "Come! I think we're safely lost now.
Let us go!"

She turned obediently from a glorious spread of gloxinias, and he made a
way for her through the buzzing crowd to the entrance. When Dick spoke
with the voice of authority, it was her pleasure to submit.

She felt her pulses tingle as she followed him, to be alone with him
again, to feel herself encompassed by the fiery magic of his love, to
yield throbbing surrender to the mastery that would not be denied. Yet
when he turned to her outside in the hot sunshine with the blaring band
close at hand she almost shrank away, she almost voiced a pretext for
continuing their unprofitable wandering through the stifling tents. For,
strangely, though he smiled at her, there was about him in that moment a
quality that went near to scaring her. Something untamed, something
indomitable, looked out at her from his glittering eyes. It was almost
like a challenge, as if he dared her to dispute his right.

"That's better," he said, drawing a deep breath. "Now we can get away."

"We shan't get away from the people," she said