d when the garden grew long ago in
the brain of a man. And out there beyond the terrace the Thames flows
quietly, silverly on, seeming to shine with the memory of all the
loveliness those gliding waters have reflected, since their ripples
played with the long, tremulous image of Lechlade spire.

Seen from the cool, deep-windowed rooms of the Palace, where now the
pictures hang and hundreds of plebeian feet tramp daily, the gardens
gave forth a burning yet pleasant glow of heat and color in the full
sunshine. Tims and Mr. Fitzalan, having eaten their frugal lunch early
under the blossoming chestnut-trees in Bushey Park, went into the
Picture Gallery in the Palace at an hour when it happened to be almost
empty. The queer-looking woman not quite young, and the little, bald,
narrow-chested, short-sighted man, would not have struck the passers-by
as being a pair of lovers. A few sympathetic smiles, however, had been
bestowed upon another couple seated in the deep window of one of the
smaller rooms; a pretty young woman and an attractive man. The young man
had disposed his hat and a newspaper in such a way as not to make it
indecently obvious that he was holding her hand. It was she who called
attention to the fact by hasty attempts to snatch it away when people
came in.

"What do you do that for?" asked the young man. "There's not the
slightest chance of any one we know coming along."

"But George--"

"Do try and adapt yourself to your _milieu_. These people are probably
blaming me for not putting my arm around your waist."

"George! What an idiot you are!" She laughed a nervous laugh.

By this time the last party of fat, dark young women in rainbow hats,
and narrow-shouldered, anaemic young men, had trooped away towards food.
Goring waited till the sound of their footsteps had ceased. He was
holding Mildred's hand, but he had drawn it out from under the newspaper
now, and the gay audacity of his look had changed to something at once
more serious and more masterful.

"I don't like your seeming afraid, Mildred," he said. "It spoils my idea
of you. I like to think of you as a high-spirited creature, conscious
enough of your own worth to go your own way and despise the foolish
comments of the crowd."

To hear herself so praised by him made the clear pink rise to Mildred's
cheeks. How could she bear to fall below the level of his expectation,
although the thing he expected of her had dangers of which he was
ignorant?