ionnet's intelligence. It hadn't been till
later that he quite recalled how in conjuring away everything but the
pleasant he had conjured away almost all they had hitherto talked
about; it was not till later even that he remembered how, with their
new tone, they hadn't so much as mentioned the name of Chad himself.
One of the things that most lingered with him on his hillside was this
delightful facility, with such a woman, of arriving at a new tone; he
thought, as he lay on his back, of all the tones she might make
possible if one were to try her, and at any rate of the probability
that one could trust her to fit them to occasions. He had wanted her
to feel that, as he was disinterested now, so she herself should be,
and she had showed she felt it, and he had showed he was grateful, and
it had been for all the world as if he were calling for the first time.
They had had other, but irrelevant, meetings; it was quite as if, had
they sooner known how much they REALLY had in common, there were
quantities of comparatively dull matters they might have skipped. Well,
they were skipping them now, even to graceful gratitude, even to
handsome "Don't mention it!"--and it was amazing what could still come
up without reference to what had been going on between them. It might
have been, on analysis, nothing more than Shakespeare and the musical
glasses; but it had served all the purpose of his appearing to have
said to her: "Don't like me, if it's a question of liking me, for
anything obvious and clumsy that I've, as they call it, 'done' for you:
like me--well, like me, hang it, for anything else you choose. So, by
the same propriety, don't be for me simply the person I've come to know
through my awkward connexion with Chad--was ever anything, by the way,
MORE awkward? Be for me, please, with all your admirable tact and
trust, just whatever I may show you it's a present pleasure to me to
think you." It had been a large indication to meet; but if she hadn't
met it what HAD she done, and how had their time together slipped along
so smoothly, mild but not slow, and melting, liquefying, into his happy
illusion of idleness? He could recognise on the other hand that he had
probably not been without reason, in his prior, his restricted state,
for keeping an eye on his liability to lapse from good faith.

He really continued in the picture--that being for himself his
situation--all the rest of this rambling day; so that the charm was