from paragraphs, darted and
plunged and leaped into the hedges.

Jane allowed some moments to lapse before she spoke again. The war, she
said, would not last for ever; and if he took this berth, it would lead
almost certainly to a regular job on the "Telegraph" at home.

He saw all that, he said, and he was profoundly grateful. His eyes, as
they turned to her, showed for a moment a film of tears. Then they
wandered from her.

He asked if he might think it over and let her know.

"When," she said, "can you let me know?"

"I think," he said, "probably, before the end of the day."

The day was drawing to its end when the group drifted and divided.
Brodrick, still imperturbable, took possession of Jane, and Prothero,
with his long swinging stride, set off in pursuit of the darting Laura.

Tanqueray, thus left behind with Nina, watched him as he went.

"He's off, Nina. Bolted." His eyes smiled at her, suave, deprecating,
delighted eyes and recklessly observant.

"So has Jane," said Nina, with her dangerous irony.

Apart from them and from their irony, Prothero was at last alone with
Laura on the top of Wendover Hill. She had ceased to dart and to plunge.

He found for her a hidden place on the green slope, under a tree, and
there he stretched himself at her side.

"Do you know," he said, "this is the first time I've seen you out of
doors."

"So it is," said she in a strange, even voice.

She drew off her gloves and held out the palms of her hands as if she
were bathing them in the pure air. Her face was turned from him and
lifted; her nostrils widened; her lips parted; her small breasts heaved;
she drank the air like water. To his eyes she was the white image of
mortal thirst.

"Is it absolutely necessary for you to live in Camden Town?" he said.

She sat up very straight and stared steadily in front of her, as if she
faced, unafraid, the invincible necessity.

"It is. Absolutely." She explained that Baxter, her landlord, had been
an old servant of Papa's, and that _the_ important thing was to be with
people who would be nice to him and not mind, she said, his little ways.

He sighed.

"Do you know what I should do with you if I could have my way? I should
turn you into a green garden and keep you there from nine in the morning
till nine at night. I should make you walk a mile with me twice a
day--not too fast. All the rest of the time you should lie on a couch on
a lawn, with a great rose-bush at you