hen they met it. But Jim's voice was
level enough, and his speech ordinary. "I'm jolly glad to get back
again," he said. "I've never liked Mountfield half so well. I was up at
six o'clock this morning, and out and about."

"So was I," said Cicely, and she told him, laughing, of the events of
the morning.

"I expect they've grown, those young beggars," said Jim, alluding thus
disrespectfully to the twins. "I've often thought of them while I've
been away, and of everybody at Kencote--you especially."

"We've all thought of you, too," said Cicely, "and talked about you. You
haven't been forgotten, Jim."

"I hoped I shouldn't be," he said simply. "By Jove, how I've looked
forward to this--coming over here the first moment I could. I wish you
hadn't got all these people here, though."

"All these people!" echoed Cicely. "Why, Jim, you know them as well as
we do."

"Yes, I'm a selfish beggar. I wanted to have you all to myself."

Cicely was a little disturbed in her mind. Jim had not talked to her
like this for five years. Ever since that long, happy summer when he and
she had been together nearly every day, when he had made love to her in
his slow, rather ponderous way, and she, her adolescence flattered, had
said "yes" when he had asked her to marry him--or rather ever since he
had written to her from Oxford to say that he must wait for some years
before he could expect to marry and that she was to consider herself
quite free--he had never by word or sign shown whether he also
considered himself free, or whether he intended, when the time came, to
ask her again to be his wife. When he had come back to Mountfield at
Christmas he had been in all respects as he had been up to six months
before, friendly and brotherly, and no more. It made it easier for her,
for her pride had been a little wounded. If he had held aloof, but shown
that, although he had given her her freedom, he hoped she had not
accepted it, she would have felt irked, and whatever unformed love she
had for Jim would quickly have disappeared. But, as it was, his equable
friendship kept alive the affection which she had always felt for him;
only it seemed to make the remembrance of their love passages a little
absurd. She was not exactly ashamed of what had happened, but she never
willingly thought of it, and after a year or so it became as much a part
of her past life as the short frocks and pinafores of her childhood. She
had been mildly chaffed about Ji