e cried, and waved a welcoming racquet.

I do not remember what I said to her or what else she said or what
anyone said. But I believe I could paint every detail of her effect. I
know that when she came out of the brightness into the shadow of the
pavilion it was like a regal condescension, and I know that she was
wonderfully self-possessed and helpful with her mother's hospitalities,
and that I marvelled I had never before perceived the subtler sweetness
in the cadence of her voice. I seem also to remember a severe internal
struggle for my self-possession, and that I had to recall my exalted
position in the sixth form to save myself from becoming tongue-tied and
abashed and awkward and utterly shamed.

You see she had her hair up and very prettily dressed, and those
aggressive lean legs of hers had vanished, and she was sheathed in
muslin that showed her the most delicately slender and beautiful of
young women. And she seemed so radiantly sure of herself!

After our first greeting I do not think I spoke to her or looked at her
again throughout the meal. I took things that she handed me with an
appearance of supreme indifference, was politely attentive to the elder
Miss Fawney, and engaged with Lady Ladislaw and the horsey little man in
brown in a discussion of the possibility of mechanical vehicles upon the
high road. That was in the early nineties. We were all of opinion that
it was impossible to make a sufficiently light engine for the purpose.
Afterwards Mary confessed to me how she had been looking forward to our
meeting, and how snubbed I had made her feel....

Then a little later than this meeting in the pavilion, though I am not
clear now whether it was the same or some subsequent afternoon, we are
walking in the sunken garden, and great clouds of purple clematis and
some less lavish heliotrope-colored creeper, foam up against the ruddy
stone balustrading. Just in front of us a fountain gushes out of a
grotto of artificial stalagmite and bathes the pedestal of an absurd
little statuette of the God of Love. We are talking almost easily. She
looks sideways at my face, already with the quiet controlled
watchfulness of a woman interested in a man, she smiles and she talks of
flowers and sunshine, the Canadian winter--and with an abrupt
transition, of old times we've had together in the shrubbery and the
wilderness of bracken out beyond. She seems tremendously grown-up and
womanly to me. I am talking my best, and