late."

"I'd stay up all night."

"Serve!" said Maxton, who was playing the two of us and had stopped I
think to tighten a shoe.

Things conspired against any more intimacy for a time. But we got our
moment on the way to tea. She glanced back at Philip, who was loosening
the net, and then forward to estimate the distance of Maxton and Guy.
"They're all three going," she said, "after Tuesday. Then--before six."

"Wednesday?"

"Yes."

"Suppose after all," she threw out, "I can't come."

"Fortunes of war."

"If I can't come one morning I may come another," she spoke hastily, and
I perceived that Guy and Maxton had turned and were waiting for us.

"You know the old Ice House?"

"Towards the gardens?"

"Yes. On the further side. Don't come by the road, come across by the
end of the mere. Lie in the bracken until you see me coming.... I've not
played tennis a dozen times this year. Not half a dozen."

This last was for the boys.

"You've played twenty times at least since you've been here," said Guy,
with the simple bluntness of a brother. "I'm certain."

Sec. 2

To this day a dewy morning in late August brings back the thought of
Mary and those stolen meetings. I have the minutest recollection of the
misty bloom upon the turf, and the ragged, filmy carpet of gossamer on
either hand, of the warm wetness of every little blade and blossom and
of the little scraps and seeds of grass upon my soaking and discolored
boots. Our footsteps were dark green upon the dew-grey grass. And I feel
the same hungry freshness again at the thought of those stolen meetings.
Presently came the sunrise, blinding, warming, dew-dispelling arrows of
gold smiting through the tree stems, a flood of light foaming over the
bracken and gilding the under sides of the branches. Everything is
different and distinctive in those opening hours; everything has a
different value from what it has by day. All the little things upon the
ground, fallen branches, tussocks, wood-piles, have a peculiar intensity
and importance, seem magnified, because of the length of their shadows
in the slanting rays, and all the great trees seem lifted above the
light and merged with the sky. And at last, a cool grey outline against
the blaze and with a glancing iridescent halo about her, comes Mary,
flitting, adventurous, friendly, wonderful.

"Oh Stevenage!" she cries, "to see you again!"

We each hold out both our hands and clasp and hesitate and rather shyl