t here we are, little better than naked animals,
bleating behind our illusory wattles on the slopes of--of infinity.
And nakedness, after all, is a wholesome thing to realize only when one
thinks too much of one's clothes. I peer sometimes, feebly enough, out
of my wool, and it seems to me that all these busybodies, all these
fact-devourers, all this news-reading rabble, are nothing brighter than
very dull-witted children trying to play an imaginative game, much too
deep for their poor reasons. I don't mean that YOUR wanting to go home
is anything gregarious, but I do think THEIR insisting on your coming
back at once might be. And I know you won't visit this stuff on me as
anything more than just my "scum," as Grisel calls the fine flower of my
maiden meditations. All that I really want to say is that we should both
be more than delighted if you'd stay just as long as it will not be a
bore for you to stay. Stay till you're heartily tired of us. Go back
now, if you MUST; tell them how much better you are. Bolt off to a nerve
specialist. He'll say complete rest--change of scene, and all that. They
all do. Instinct via intellect. And why not take your rest here? We
are such miserably dull company to one another it would be a greater
pleasure to have you with us than I can say. I mean it from the very
bottom of my heart. Do!'

Lawford listened. 'I wish--,' he began, and stopped dead again. 'Anyhow,
I'll go back. I am afraid, Herbert, I've been playing truant. It was all
very well while--To tell you the truth I can't think QUITE straight yet.
But it won't last for ever. Besides--well, anyhow, I'll go back.'

'Right you are,' said Herbert, pretending to be cheerful. 'You can't
expect, you really can't, everything to come right straight away. Just
have patience. And now, let's go out and sit in the sun. They've mixed
September up with May.'

And about half an hour afterwards he glanced up from his book to find
his visitor fast asleep in his garden chair.

Grisel had taken her brother's place, with a little pile of needlework
beside her on the grass, when Lawford again opened his eyes under the
rosy shade of a parasol. He watched her for a while, without speaking.

'How long have I been asleep?' he said at last.

She started and looked up from her needle.

'That depends on how long you have been awake,' she said, smiling. 'My
brother tells me,' she went on, beginning to stitch, 'that you have
made up your mind to leave u