had caught her at
the looking-glass might be disagreeable, but it couldn't slime those
holy lawns. Neither could it break the ecstasy of Wednesday, that
heavenly day. Nothing could break it as long as Dr. Rowcliffe
continued to look in at tea-time and her father to explore the
furthest borders of his parish.

The peace of Paradise came down on the Vicarage every Wednesday
the very minute the garden gate had swung back behind the Vicar. He
started so early and he was back so late that there was never any
chance of his encountering young Rowcliffe.

* * * * *

To be sure, young Rowcliffe hardly ever said a word to her. He always
talked to Mary or to Gwenda. But there was nothing in his reticence to
disturb Ally's ecstasy. It was bliss to sit and look at Rowcliffe and
to hear him talk. When she tried to talk to him herself her brain
swam and she became unhappy and confused. Intellectual effort was
destructive to the blessed state, which was pure passivity, untroubled
contemplation in its early stages, before the oncoming of rapture.

The fact that Mary and Gwenda could talk to him and talk intelligently
showed how little they cared for him or were likely to care, and
how immeasurably far they were from the supreme act of adoration.
Similarly, the fact that Rowcliffe could talk to Mary and to Gwenda
showed how little _he_ cared. If he had cared, if he were ever going
to care as Ally understood caring, his brain would have swum like hers
and his intellect would have abandoned him.

Whereas, it was when he turned to Ally that he hadn't a word to say,
any more than she had, and that he became entangled in his talk, and
that the intellect he tried to summon to him tottered and vanished at
his call.

Another thing--when he caught her looking at him (and though Ally was
careful he did catch her now and then) he always either lowered his
eyelids or looked away. He was afraid to look at her; and _that_, as
everybody knew, was an infallible sign. Why, Ally was afraid to look
at _him_, only she couldn't help it. Her eyes were dragged to the
terror and the danger.

So Ally reasoned in her Paradise.

For when Rowcliffe was once gone her brain was frantically busy. It
never gave her any rest. From the one stuff of its dreams it span an
endless shining thread; from the one thread it wove an endless web of
visions. From nothing at all it built up drama after drama. It was all
beautiful what Ally'