ving him to lag for a while with a lame tune of his
own, or else she would burst into tears. Michael preferred an
inspiration more immediately visual to Stella's incomprehensibly
boundless observations. Michael would enjoy holding in his hand a bunch
of blue cornflowers; Stella would tear them to pieces, not irritably,
but absently in a seclusion of spacious visions. On this occasion
Michael paid no attention to Stella's salutation of light; he was merely
thankful she showed no sign of wishing to be amused by 'peep-bo,' or by
the pulling of curious faces. Both these diversions were dangerous to
Michael's peace of mind, because at some period of the entertainment he
was bound, with disastrous results, to cross the line between Stella's
joy and Stella's fear. Michael turned to look out of the window, finding
the details of the view enthralling. He marked first of all the long row
of poplar trees already fresh and vivid with young May's golden green.
Those trees, waving with their youthfulness in the wind, extended as far
as could be observed on either side. Three in every garden were planted
close to the farthest wall. How beautiful they looked, and how the
sparrows hopped from branch to branch. Michael let his eyes rove along
the pleasant green line whose slightness and evenness caressed the
vision, as velvet might have caressed a hand running lightly over the
surface. Suddenly, with a sharp emotion of shame, Michael perceived that
the middle tree opposite his own window was different from the rest. It
was not the same shape; it carried little blobs such as hang from
tablecloths and curtains; it scarcely showed a complete leaf. Here was a
subject for speculation indeed; and the more Michael looked at the other
trees, the more he grew ashamed for the loiterer. This problem would
worry him interminably: he would return to it often and often. But the
exquisite pleasure he had taken in the trim and equable row was gone;
for as soon as the eye caressed it, there was this intolerably naked
tree to affront all regularity.

After the trees, Michael examined the trellis that extended along the
top of a stuccoed wall without interruption on either side. This trellis
was a curiosity, for if he looked at it very hard, the lozenges of space
came out from their frame and moved about in a blur--an odd business
presumably inexplicable for evermore like everything else. Beyond the
trellis was the railway; and while Michael was looking a s