was nothing
in particular which I believed, but I disbelieved one thing very
definitely. It was that Elsa wept because she must be absent from me for
a month--a month delightfully busied with the making of four hundred
frocks.

Impelled partly by duty but more by curiosity, I went in search of her.
Having failed to find her in the house or on the terrace, I descended
into the hanging woods, and made for an arbour which she and I and
Varvilliers had fallen into the habit of frequenting. A broad grass
path ran up to the front of it, but, coming as I did, I approached it by
a side track. Elsa sat on the seat and Varvilliers stood before her. He
was talking; she leaned forward listening, with her hands clasped in her
lap and her eyes fixed on his face. Neither perceived me. I walked
briskly toward them, without loitering or spying, but I did not call
out. Varvilliers' talk was light, if it might be judged by his
occasional laughs. When I was ten yards off I called, "Hallo, here you
are!" He turned with a little start, but an easy smile. Elsa flushed
red. I had not yet apprehended the truth, although now the idea was
dimly in my mind. I sat down by Elsa, and we talked. Of what I have
forgotten. I think, in part, of William Adolphus, I laughing at my
brother-in-law, Varvilliers feigning to defend him with good-humoured
irony. It did not matter of what we talked. For me there was
significance in nothing save in Elsa's eyes. They were all for
Varvilliers, for him sparkled, for him clouded, for him wondered,
laughed, applauded, lived. Presently I dropped out of the conversation
and sat silent, facing this new thing. It was not bitter to me; my mood
of desire had gone too utterly. There was no pang of defeated rivalry.
But I knew why Elsa had cried, who had power to bring, and who also had
power to dry, her tears.

Suddenly I saw, or seemed to see, a strange and unusual restraint in
Varvilliers' manner. He missed the thread of a story, stumbled, grew
dull, and lost his animation. He seemed to talk now for duty, not for
pleasure, as a man who covers an awkward moment rather than employs to
the full a happy opportunity. Then his glance rested for an instant on
my face. I do not know what or how much my face told him, but I did not
look at him unkindly.

"I must go, if I may," he said addressing me. "I promised to ride with
Vohrenlorf, and the time is past."

He bowed to Elsa and to me.

"We shall see you this afternoon?" she