d the
larks fly out of the gold, and the sky is a single sapphire, and two
white clouds are floating. It is May time.

They walked toward the tennis seat with its red striped awning. They
listened to the feeble cawing of young rooks swinging on the branches.
They watched the larks nestle in, and fly out of the gold. It was May
time, and the air was bright with buds and summer bees. She was dressed
in white, and the shadow of the straw hat fell across her eyes when she
raised her face. He was dressed in black, and the clerical frock coat
buttoned by one button at the throat fell straight.

They sat under the red striped awning of the tennis seat. The large
grasping hands holding the polished cane contrasted with the reedy
translucent hands laid upon the white folds. The low sweet breath of the
May time breathed within them, and their hearts were light; hers was
conscious only of the May time, but his was awake with unconscious love,
and he yielded to her, to the perfume of the garden, to the absorbing
sweetness of the moment. He was no longer John Norton. His being was
part of the May time; it had gone forth and had mingled with the colour
of the fields and sky; with the life of the flowers, with all vague
scents and sounds; with the joy of the birds that flew out of and
nestled with amorous wings in the gold. Enraptured and in complete
forgetfulness of his vows, he looked at her, he felt his being
quickening, and the dark dawn of a late nubility radiated into manhood.

"How beautiful the day is," he said, speaking slowly. "Is it not all
light and colour, and you in your white dress with the sunlight on your
hair seem more blossom-like than any flower. I wonder what flower I
should compare you to.... Shall I say a rose? No, not a rose, nor a
lily, nor a violet; you remind me rather of a tall delicate pale
carnation...."

"Why, John, I never heard you speak like that before; I thought you
never paid compliments."

The transparent green of the limes shivers, the young rooks caw feebly,
and the birds nestle with amorous wings in the blossoming gold. Kitty
has taken off her straw hat, the sunlight caresses the delicate
plenitudes of the bent neck, the delicate plenitudes bound with white
cambric, cambric swelling gently over the bosom into the narrow circle
of the waist, cambric fluted to the little wrist, reedy translucid
hands; cambric falling outwards and flowing like a great white flower
over the green sward, over