arm-life the more he admired Janet.
She was a little slow. She was not clever; and she had plenty of small
prejudices which amused him. But she was the salt of the earth. Trust
her--lean upon her--she would never let you down. And now he was going to
trust his beloved to her--for a while.

Yes--Rachel and the girls, they were all in the high barn, feeding the
greedy maw of the threshing machine; a business which strained muscles
and backs, and choked noses and throats with infinitesimal particles of
oil and the fine flying chaff. He watched Rachel a few minutes as she
lifted and pitched--a typical figure of a New Labour, which is also a New
Beauty, on this old earth. Then he drew her away, flung off his tunic,
and took her place, while she, smiling and panting, her hands on her
sides, leaned against the wall, and watched in her turn.

Then when the engine stopped, and the great hopper full of grain lay
ready for the miller, they found themselves alone in the barn for a
minute. The girls and Janet had gone to milk, and Hastings with them.
There was a lantern in the barn, which showed Rachel in the swirl of the
corn dust with which the barn was full, haloed and golden with it, like a
Homeric goddess in a luminous cloud. Her soft brown head, her smile,
showing the glint of her white teeth, her eyes, and all the beauty of her
young form, in its semi-male dress--they set his blood on fire. Just as
he was, in his khaki shirt-sleeves, he came to her, and took her in his
arms. She clung to him passionately.

"I thought you were never coming."

It was one of the reproaches that have no sting.

"I came at the first moment. I left a score of things undone."

"Have you been thinking of me?"

"Always--always. And you?"

"Nearly always," she said teasingly. "But I have been making up my
accounts."

"Avaricious woman!--thinking of nothing but money. Dear--I have several
bits of news for you. But let me wash!" He held out his hands--"I am
not fit to touch you!"

She disengaged herself quietly.

"What news?"

"Some letters first," he said, smiling. "A budget and a half--mostly for
you, from all my home people. Can you face it?"

"In reply to your cable?"

"My most extravagant cable! On the top of course of sacks of letters!"

"Before we were engaged?"

He laughed as he thrust his arms into his tunic.

"My mother seems to have guessed from my very first mention of you."

"But--she doesn't know yet?" said Rachel, sl