nied by a gentleman in khaki he discreetly
withdraws out of hearing and tidies up a tree fern. Vivien and
Michael seat themselves on two green iron chairs under the fronds
and in front of grey stems.

_Vivie_: "This is a favourite place of mine for assignations. I
can't think why it is so little appreciated by young Brussels. These
palm houses are much more beautiful than anything at Kew; they are
in the heart of Brussels, over which, as you see, you have a
wonderful view. It was much more frequented when the Germans were
here. With all their brutality they did not injure this unequalled
collection of Tropical plants. They made the Palm House an allowance
of coal and coke in winter while we poor human beings went without.
I used often to come in here on a winter's day to get warm and to
forget my sorrows....

"Look at that superb Raphia--_what_ fronds! And that Phoenix
spinosa--and that Aralia--"

_Rossiter_: "Bother the Aralia. I haven't come here for a Botany
lesson. Besides, it isn't an Aralia; it's a Gomphocarpus.... Vivie!
_Will_ you marry me?"

_Vivie_: "My dear Michael: I was forty-three last October."

_Michael_: "I was _fifty-three_ last November, the day the Armistice
was signed. But I feel more like thirty-three. Life in camp has
quite rejuvenated me..."

_Vivie_ (continuing): ... "And my hair is cinder grey--an
unfortunate transition colour. And if the gardener were not looking
I should say: 'Feel my elbows ... Dreadfully bony! And my face has
become..." She turns her face towards him. He sees tears trembling
on the lower lashes of her grey eyes, but something has come into
the features, some irradiation of love--is it the light of the
sunset?--which imparts a tender youthfulness to the curvature of
cheek, lips and chin. Her face, indeed, might be of any age: it held
the undying beauty of a goddess, in whom knowledge has sweetened to
tenderness and divinity has dissolved in a need for compassion; and
the youthful assurance of a happy woman whose wish at last is
won....

For a minute she looks at him without finishing her sentence. Then
she sits up straighter and says explicitly: "Yes, I will."

* * * * *

The gardener managed an occasional peep at them, sitting hand in
hand. He wished the idyll to last as long as the clear daylight, but
the hour for closing was four o'clock--"Il n'y avait pas a nier."
Either they were husband and wife, reunited, after years of
war