" he said hoarsely, "unless we can find the missing
plant, I shall be again the common little clerk who came and peered over
your hedge at you in the summer."

She smiled a little incredulously.

"Even when you tell me so," she insisted, "I cannot believe it."

He drew his chair closer to hers. He looked around him nervously, the
horror was in his eyes.

"Since I saw you last," he continued, "I have been very nearly like it.
I couldn't travel alone, I bought silly comic papers, I played nap with
young men who talked of nothing but their 'shop' and their young ladies.
I have been to a public-house, drunk beer, and shaken hands with the
barmaid. I was even disappointed when one of them--a creature with
false hair, a loud, rasping voice and painted lips--was not there. Just
in time I took one of my beans and became myself again, but Edith, I
have only two more. When they are gone there is an end of me. That is
why I sit here by your side at this moment and feel myself a condemned
man. I think that when I feel the change coming I shall throw myself
over into the river. I could not bear the other life again!"

"Absurd!" she declared.

"If I believed," he went on, "that I could carry with me across that
curious boundary enough of decency, enough of my present feelings, to
keep us wholly apart, I would be happier. It is one of the terrors of
my worst moments when I think that in the months or years to come I may
again be tempted--no, not I, but Alfred Burton of Garden Green may be
tempted--to look once more across the hedge for you."

She smiled reassuringly at him.

"You do not terrify me in the least. I shall ask you in to tea."

He groaned.

"My speech will be Cockney and my manners a little forward," he said, in
a tone of misery. "If I see your piano I shall want to vamp."

"I think," she murmured, "that for the sake of the Alfred Burton who is
sitting by my side to-night, I shall still be kind to you. Perhaps you
will not need my sympathy, though. Perhaps you will adapt yourself
wholly to your new life when the time comes."

He shook his head.

"There are cells in one's memory," he muttered. "I don't understand--I
don't know how they get there--but don't you remember that time last
summer when I was picnicking with my common friends? We were drinking
beer out of a stone jug, we were singing vulgar songs, we were revelling
in the silly puerilities of a bank holiday out of doors. And I saw your
face and some