m round her and waited. Five minutes passed. The air was
trembling with a sort of pale vibration, for the moonlight had found
a hole in the dark foliage and flooded on to the ground beside them,
whitening the black beech-husks. Some tiny bird, disturbed by these
unwonted visitors, began chirruping and fluttering, but was soon still
again. To Martin, so strangely close to this young creature in the
night, there came a sense of utter disturbance.

'Poor little thing!' he thought; 'be careful of her, comfort her!'
Hardness seemed so broken out of her, and the night so wonderful! And
there came into the young man's heart a throb of the knowledge--very
rare with him, for he was not, like Hilary, a philosophising
person--that she was as real as himself--suffering, hoping, feeling,
not his hopes and feelings, but her own. His fingers kept pressing her
shoulder through her thin blouse. And the touch of those fingers was
worth more than any words, as this night, all moonlit dreams, was worth
more than a thousand nights of sane reality.

Thyme twisted herself away from him at last. "I can't," she sobbed. "I'm
not what you thought me--I'm not made for it!"

A scornful little smile curled Martin's lip. So that was it! But the
smile soon died away. One did not hit what was already down!

Thyme's voice wailed through the silence. "I thought I could--but I want
beautiful things. I can't bear it all so grey and horrible. I'm not like
that girl. I'm-an-amateur!"

'If I kissed her---' Martin thought.

She sank down again, burying her face in the dark beech-mat. The
moonlight had passed on. Her voice came faint and stiffed, as out of the
tomb of faith. "I'm no good. I never shall be. I'm as bad as mother!"

But to Martin there was only the scent of her hair.

"No," murmured Thyme's voice, "I'm only fit for miserable Art.... I'm
only fit for--nothing!"

They were so close together on the dark beech mat that their bodies
touched, and a longing to clasp her in his arms came over him.

"I'm a selfish beast!" moaned the smothered voice. "I don't really care
for all these people--I only care because they're ugly for me to see!"

Martin reached his hand out to her hair. If she had shrunk away he would
have seized her, but as though by instinct she let it rest there. And at
her sudden stillness, strange and touching, Martin's quick passion left
him. He slipped his arm round her and raised her up, as if she had been
a child, and for a