e aside, then dropped
it and shrank back under the trellis.

The garden was empty. But across it, just at the entrance of the wood
path, she saw a man and a woman. At first she took the two figures for
one, they were standing so closely embraced. She could not see their
faces, only the two dark figures standing there like one. They stood
still a long time. They might have been lovers in a picture, only you
could not paint pictures of darkly clothed, ungraceful, shapeless
people. Finally they moved, the man turning suddenly, slipping an arm
higher around the woman's shoulders, and putting his face down to hers.

Then he drew her into the wood path, and they passed down it out of
sight. Judith did not know who the woman was, but the man was Colonel
Everard. And they had kissed each other.

Now they were gone. Judith drew a deep breath of relief and stepped out
into the enclosure, pacing across it with slow steps, possessing it for
her own and dismissing alien presences. There was a high-backed marble
erection between the benches, which looked like a memorial to the dear
departed, but was designed for a chair. She seated herself there
deliberately, leaning back, at ease somehow in the unfriendly depths of
it, a slender, uncompromising creature, like a young princess sitting in
judgment on her throne.

They had kissed each other. She knew they did things like this, but now
she had seen it, which was different, and not very pleasant. But they
were all so old. Did it really matter whether they kissed each other or
not?

"Stupid old things," said Colonel Everard's only authorized critic, "I
don't care what they do."

Here in the quiet of the garden you were free to think about more
interesting things than the Everards or even fairy princes.

"Stupid," repeated Judith absently, and forgot the Everards. The moon,
far away but very clear, shone down at her in an unwinking,
concentrated way, as if it were shining into the Colonel's garden and
nowhere else, and at nobody but Judith. She did not look disconcerted by
the attention, but stared back at it with eyes that were not sleepy now,
but very big and bright--wondering, but not afraid.

On still nights like this you could just hear the church clock strike
from the garden, but you could not count all the strokes. Judith
listened for the sound. It was early, and out here, in the cool, still
air, it felt early, though the time had passed so slowly in the
Colonel's sleepy r