of pavement protected by an
overhanging section of roof. Catherine stepped out on this pavement.
Mark followed her. They stood together facing the spring night. There
was no moon, but the sky was clear and starlit. Nature seemed breathing
quietly, like a thing alive but asleep. The surrounding woods were a
dusky wall. The clearing was a vague sea of dew. And the air was full of
that wonderful scent that all things seem to have in spring. It is like
the perfume of life, of life that God has consecrated, of life that
might have been in Eden. It is odorous with hope. It stings and
embraces. It stirs the imagination to magic. It stirs the heart to
tears. For it is ineffably beautiful and expectant.

"How delicious!" Mark said.

Catherine's hand tightened on his arm.

"The trees are talking," he said. "That damp scent comes from their
roots, and the flowers and grasses round them."

He drew in his breath with a gasp of pleasure.

"Yes?" Catherine said.

He bent down and touched the lawn with his hand.

"What a dew! Look, Kitty, there goes a rabbit!"

A hunched shadow suddenly flattened and vanished.

"Little beggar! He's gone into the wood. What a jolly time he and his
relations must have."

"Yes, Mark. Isn't the night happy, and the spring?"

He drew in his breath again.

"Yes."

"Mark!"

"Well, dear?"

"Mark--don't write this book."

Mark started slightly with surprise.

"Kitty! what are you saying?"

"Write a happy book."

"My dear babe--how uninteresting!"

"Write a good book, a book to make people better and happier."

"A book with a purpose! No, Kitty."

"Well then, a spring book. This night isn't a night with a purpose,
because it's lovely."

He laughed quite gaily.

"Humorist! Why did you bring me out into it?"

"To influence you against that book."

He was silent.

"Are you angry, Mark?"

"No, dear."

"Will you do what I ask?"

"No, Kitty."

He spoke very quietly and gently, then changed the subject, talked of
the coming summer, the garden, prospective pleasures. But he talked no
more of his work. Next day he shut himself up in his study, and
thenceforward his life became a repetition of his life during the
previous summer. A fortnight later Frederic Berrand arrived.

Catherine had long felt an eager desire to see this one intimate friend
of Mark's. She expected him to be no ordinary man, and she was not
mistaken. Berrand was much older than Mark. He looked about forty.