e asked each other that question, and put it
aside. They argued that the climate--a pearly blend, unlike the hot
and cold ferocities of their native land--suited them, as the thick
stillness of the nights certainly suited George. He was saved even the
sight of a metalled road, which, as presumably leading to business,
wakes desire in a man; and the telegraph office at the village of Friars
Pardon, where they sold picture post-cards and pegtops, was two walking
miles across the fields and woods.

For all that touched his past among his fellows, or their remembrance
of him, he might have been in another planet; and Sophie, whose life had
been very largely spent among husbandless wives of lofty ideals, had
no wish to leave this present of God. The unhurried meals, the
foreknowledge of deliciously empty hours to follow, the breadths of soft
sky under which they walked together and reckoned time only by their
hunger or thirst; the good grass beneath their feet that cheated the
miles; their discoveries, always together, amid the farms--Griffons,
Rocketts, Burnt House, Gale Anstey, and the Home Farm, where Iggulden of
the blue smock-frock would waylay them, and they would ransack the old
house once more; the long wet afternoons when, they tucked up their
feet on the bedroom's deep window-sill over against the apple-trees, and
talked together as never till then had they found time to talk--these
things contented her soul, and her body throve.

"Have you realized," she asked one morning, "that we've been here
absolutely alone for the last thirty-four days?"

"Have you counted them?" he asked.

"Did you like them?" she replied.

"I must have. I didn't think about them. Yes, I have. Six months ago I
should have fretted myself sick. Remember at Cairo? I've only had two or
three bad times. Am I getting better, or is it senile decay?"

"Climate, all climate." Sophie swung her new-bought English boots, as
she sat on the stile overlooking Friars Pardon, behind the Clokes's
barn.

"One must take hold of things though," he said, "if it's only to keep
one's hand in." His eyes did not flicker now as they swept the empty
fields. "Mustn't one?"

"Lay out a Morristown links over Gale Anstey. I dare say you could hire
it."

"No, I'm not as English as that--nor as Morristown. Cloke says all the
farms here could be made to pay."

"Well, I'm Anastasia in the 'Treasure of Franchard.' I'm content to be
alive and purr. There's no hurry.