es.

The "flowing arbor" of Corrie's description was a decorative masterpiece
of Mr. Rose's own design; a large, pink marble fountain, surrounded by a
pink-columned arcade strewn with rugs and cushions. Whatever its
architectural faults, it was a fairy-tale place of gurgling water and
soft shadows, shot through with the tints of silver spray, rosy stone
and deep green turf. Flavia was seated here, in the summer-warm
sunshine of early October that had succeeded the storms of the previous
week, a long strip of varicolored embroidery lying across her lap and
the overfed Persian kitten nestling against her light gown.

"Corrie is home," Gerard announced, pausing in one of the arched
openings. "But I suppose you saw him come in, from here."

The young girl lifted to him the frank welcome of her glance and smile,
with their pathetic shade of hostess dignity.

"I saw you both come in," she confirmed. "One sees a great deal from
this watch-tower. But it is good of you to tell me; you know how glad I
am when he is back. Will you not rest before you go into the house?
Corrie always comes here first; to gather strength, he says, to climb
the terrace steps."

"I am not fit," he deprecated. "I would soil your purple with my dust
and poison, your Venetian atmosphere with gasoline fumes."

"Corrie does it."

"Corrie is privileged. The first time I ever saw you, you were watching
Corrie. You made me feel that I lived in a barn."

"A----"

"A blank, impersonal, vacant set of rooms. A house where, if I were
brought in on a shutter, there would be no one except the undertaker to
pull down the shades."

Flavia winced, shocked out of her calm.

"Please do not! I--please do not say those things."

"There, you see. I do not even know how to talk to you properly. It
doesn't worry me to think about just dying and I forgot that other
people dislike the subject. Now, it was living that made me envy Corrie
and feel melancholy."

Flavia drew the silk thread with slow accuracy. Her pulses were
commencing to beat heavy strokes, she dared not raise her troubled eyes
to the dominant, self-possessed man opposite. There was a pause.

"In novels," Gerard mused, "when a man sees the woman who locks the
wheels of his fancy, he drops everything else and follows her until he
gets--his answer. But in real life we're pretty stupid; we let
circumstances interfere, or we don't quite realize what has happened to
us, we don't do the right thing, a