 at her ribands was not favourable to speech. His »Anywhere!« had a
penetrating significance, the fuller for the break that left it vague.
    Speech between them was commanded; he could not be suffered to remain. She
descended upon a sheltered pathway running along a ditch, the border of pastures
where cattle cropped, raised heads, and resumed their one comforting occupation.
    Diana gazed on them, smarting from the buffets of the wind she had met.
    »No play of their tails to-day«; she said, as she slackened her steps. »You
left Lady Esquart well?«
    »Lady Esquart ... I think was well. I had to see you. I thought you would be
with her in Berkshire. She told me of a little sea-side place close to Caen.«
    »You had to see me?«
    »I miss you now if it's a day!«
    »I heard a story in London ...«
    »In London there are many stories. I heard one. Is there a foundation for
it?«
    »No.«
    He breathed relieved. »I wanted to see you once before ... if it was true.
It would have made a change in my life - a gap.«
    »You do me the honour to like my Sunday evenings?«
    »Beyond everything London can offer.«
    »A letter would have reached me.«
    »I should have had to wait for the answer. There is no truth in it?«
    Her choice was to treat the direct assailant frankly or imperil her defence
by the ordinary feminine evolutions, which might be taken for inviting: poor
pranks always.
    »There have been overtures,« she said.
    »Forgive me; I have scarcely the right to ask ... speak of it.«
    »My friends may use their right to take an interest in my fortunes.«
    »I thought I might, on my way to Paris, turn aside ... coming by this
route.«
    »If you determined not to lose much of your time.«
    The coolness of her fencing disconcerted a gentleman conscious of his
madness. She took instant advantage of any circuitous move; she gave him no
practicable point. He was little skilled in the arts of attack, and felt that
she checked his impetuousness; respected her for it, chafed at it, writhed with
the fervours precipitating him here, and relapsed on his pleasure in seeing her
face, hearing her voice.
    »Your happiness, I hope, is the chief thought in such a
