g out." They laughed. She
always blew his cobwebs away like this, with a puff of humorous mountain
air. Just now the associations he attached to her were various--she
reminded him of a heroine of Meredith's--but a heroine at the end of the
book. All had been written about her. She had played her mighty part,
and knew that it was over. He and he alone was not content, and wrote
for her daily a trivial and impossible sequel.

Last time they had talked about Gerald. But that was some six months
ago, when things felt easier. Today Gerald was the faintest blur.
Fortunately the conversation turned to Mr. Pembroke and to education.
Did women lose a lot by not knowing Greek? "A heap," said Rickie,
roughly. But modern languages? Thus they got to Germany, which he had
visited last Easter with Ansell; and thence to the German Emperor, and
what a to-do he made; and from him to our own king (still Prince of
Wales), who had lived while an undergraduate at Madingley Hall. Here it
was. And all the time he thought, "It is hard on her. She has no right
to be walking with me. She would be ill with disgust if she knew. It is
hard on her to be loved."

They looked at the Hall, and went inside the pretty little church. Some
Arundel prints hung upon the pillars, and Agnes expressed the opinion
that pictures inside a place of worship were a pity. Rickie did not
agree with this. He said again that nothing beautiful was ever to be
regretted.

"You're cracked on beauty," she whispered--they were still inside the
church. "Do hurry up and write something."

"Something beautiful?"

"I believe you can. I'm going to lecture you seriously all the way home.
Take care that you don't waste your life."

They continued the conversation outside. "But I've got to hate my own
writing. I believe that most people come to that stage--not so early
though. What I write is too silly. It can't happen. For instance, a
stupid vulgar man is engaged to a lovely young lady. He wants her to
live in the towns, but she only cares for woods. She shocks him this way
and that, but gradually he tames her, and makes her nearly as dull as
he is. One day she has a last explosion--over the snobby wedding
presents--and flies out of the drawing-room window, shouting, 'Freedom
and truth!' Near the house is a little dell full of fir-trees, and she
runs into it. He comes there the next moment. But she's gone."

"Awfully exciting. Where?"

"Oh Lord, she's a Dryad!" cried Rickie,