half as fast and isn't there?--but the
moment her pink parasol loomed on the horizon, all his long misery
vanished in an ineffable peace and uplifting. He hurried, bare-headed,
to clasp her little gloved hand. He had forgotten her unpunctuality, nor
did she remind him of it.

'How sweet of you to come all that way,' was all she said, and it was a
sufficient reward for the hours in the train and the six hundred minutes
among the nursemaids and perambulators. The elms were in their glory,
the birds were singing briskly, the water sparkled, the sunlit sward
stretched fresh and green--it was the loveliest, coolest moment of the
afternoon. John instinctively turned down a leafy avenue. Nature and
Love! What more could poet ask?

'No, we can't have tea by the Kiosk,' Mrs. Glamorys protested. 'Of course
I love anything that savours of Paris, but it's become so fashionable.
There will be heaps of people who know me. I suppose you've forgotten
it's the height of the season. I know a quiet little place in the High
Street.' She led him, unresisting but bemused, towards the gate, and
into a confectioner's. Conversation languished on the way.

'Tea,' he was about to instruct the pretty attendant.

'Strawberry ices,' Mrs. Glamorys remarked gently. 'And some of those nice
French cakes.'

The ice restored his spirits, it was really delicious, and he had got so
hot and tired, pacing round the pond. Decidedly Winifred was a practical
person and he was a dreamer. The pastry he dared not touch--being a
genius--but he was charmed at the gaiety with which Winifred crammed
cake after cake into her rosebud of a mouth. What an enchanting
creature! how bravely she covered up her life's tragedy!

The thought made him glance at her velvet band--it was broader than
ever.

'He has beaten you again!' he murmured furiously. Her joyous eyes
saddened, she hung her head, and her fingers crumbled the cake. 'What is
his pretext?' he asked, his blood burning.

'Jealousy,' she whispered.

His blood lost its glow, ran cold. He felt the bully's blows on his own
skin, his romance turning suddenly sordid. But he recovered his
courage. He, too, had muscles. 'But I thought he just missed seeing me
kiss your hand.'

She opened her eyes wide. 'It wasn't you, you darling old dreamer.'

He was relieved and disturbed in one.

'Somebody else?' he murmured. Somehow the vision of the player-fellow
came up.

She nodded. 'Isn't it lucky he has himself drawn