e whether they look best in white or
red, and so waver for the whole of their little lives between the two
colours; there are many of them, and it is the pathetic thing about
wild roses. She did not pay much heed to her handiwork. What she was
saying to herself was that in another minute he and she would be
alone. Nothing else in the world mattered very much. Every bit of her
was conscious of it as the supreme event. Her fingers pressed it upon
the flowers. It was in her eyes as much as in her heart. He went on
casting his line, moving from stone to stone, dropping down the bank,
ascending it, as if the hooking of a trout was something to him. Was
he feeling to his marrow that as soon as those other two figures
rounded the bend in the stream he and she would have the world to
themselves? Ah, of course he felt it, but was it quite as much to him
as it was to her?

"Not quite so much," she said bravely to herself. "I don't want it to
be quite so much--but nearly."

[Illustration: She did not look up, she waited.]

And now they were alone as no two can be except those who love; for
when the third person leaves them they have a universe to themselves,
and it is closed in by the heavens, and the air of it is the
consciousness of each other's presence. She sat motionless
now--trembling, exulting. She could no longer hear the talking of the
water, but she heard his step. He was coming slowly towards her. She
did not look up--she waited; and while she waited time was
annihilated.

He was coming to her to treat her as if she were a fond child; that
she, of all women, could permit it was still delicious to him, and a
marvel. She had let him do it yesterday, but perhaps she had regained
her independence in the night. As he hesitated he became another
person. In a flood of feeling he had a fierce desire to tell her the
truth about himself. But he did not know what it was. He put aside his
rod, and sat down very miserably beside her.

"Grizel, I suppose I am a knave." His lips parted to say it, but no
words came. She had given him an adorable look that stopped them as if
her dear hand had been placed upon his mouth.

Was he a knave? He wanted honestly to know. He had not tried to make
her love him. Had he known in time he would even have warned her
against it. He would never have said he loved her had she not first,
as she thought, found it out; to tell her the truth then would have
been brutal. He had made believe in order