s you must have been, fifteen or
twenty years ago, ever goes without a lover _in posse_, though he may
never work out as a husband _in esse_, nor even a _fiance_." He did not
see his way to polishing and finishing it so that it would be safe. He
could manage nothing better than "Obviously!" He said it twice
certainly, and threw away the end of his cigar to repeat it. But he
might not have done this if he had not been so near departure.

Somehow, it left them both silent. Sauntering along on the new-fallen
beechmast, struck by the gleams of a sunset that seemed to be giving
satisfaction to the ringdoves overhead, it could not be necessary to
prosecute the conversation. All the same, if it had paused on a
different note, an incredibly slight incident that counted for something
quite measurable in the judgment of each, might have had no importance
whatever.

But really it was so slight an incident that the story is almost ashamed
to mention it. It was this. An island of bracken, with briars in its
confidence, not negotiable by skirts--especially in those days--must
needs split a path of turf-velvet wide enough for acquaintances, into
two paths narrow enough for lovers. Practically, the choice between
walking in one of these at the risk of some little rabbit
misinterpreting their relations, and going round the island, lay with
the gentleman. The Hon. Percival did not mince the matter, as he might
have done last week, but diminished his distance from his companion in
order that one narrow pathway should accommodate both. It was just after
they had passed the island that Miss Dickenson exclaimed:--"There's the
carriage," and Gwen perceived their consciousness of its proximity. The
last episode of the story comes abreast of the present one.

The story is ashamed of its own prolixity. But how is justice to be done
to the gradual evolution of a situation if hard-and-fast laws are to be
laid down, restricting the number of words that its chronicler shall
employ? Condemn him by all means, but admit at least that every smallest
incident of the foregoing narrative had its share of influence on the
future of its actors.

It is true that nothing very crucial followed. For when, after the
carriage had pulled up and interrupted the current of conversation, and
gone on again leaving it doubtful how it should be resumed, it again
stopped for the pedestrians to overtake it, it became morally incumbent
on them to do so, and also prudent