and in
this sentence I pass over letters to and fro,--letters wild from
Nicolete, letters wise from Aucassin, letters explanatory and
apologetic from the Obstacle--how the Major-General had suddenly come
home quite unexpectedly and compelled her to explain Nicolete's
absence, etc., etc. Dear Obstacle! I should rather have enjoyed a
pilgrimage with her too)--I found myself one afternoon again upon the
road. The day had been very warm and dusty, and had turned sleepy
towards tea-time.

I had now pretty clearly in my mind what I wanted. This time it was,
all other things equal, to be "a woman who had suffered," and to this
end, I had, before starting out once more, changed my age back again at
the inn and written "Aetat. 30" after my name in the visitors' book.
As a young man I was an evident failure, and so, having made the
countersign, I was speedily transformed to my old self; and I must say
that it was a most comfortable feeling, something like getting back
again into an old coat or an old pair of shoes. I never wanted to be
young again as long as I lived. Youth was too much like the Sunday
clothes of one's boyhood. Moreover, I had a secret conviction that the
woman I was now in search of would prefer one who had had some
experience at being a man, who would bring her not the green plums of
his love, but the cunningly ripened nectarines, a man to whom love was
something of an art as well as an inspiration.

It was in this frame of mind that I came upon the following scene.

The lane was a very cloistral one, with a ribbon of gravelly road,
bordered on each side with a rich margin of turf and a scramble of
blackberry bushes, green turf banks and dwarf oak-trees making a rich
and plenteous shade. My attention was caught firstly by a bicycle
lying carelessly on the turf, and secondly and lastly by a graceful
woman's figure, recumbent and evidently sleeping against the turf bank,
well tucked in among the afternoon shadows. My coming had not aroused
her, and so I stole nearer to her on tiptoe.

She was a pretty woman, of a striking modern type, tall,
well-proportioned, strong, I should say, with a good complexion that
had evidently been made just a little better. But her most striking
feature was an opulent mass of dark red hair, which had fallen in some
disorder and made quite a pillow for her head. Her hat was off, lying
in its veil by her side, and a certain general abandon of her
figure,--which was clothed