He laughed again at her sudden funny dignity.  Then, as suddenly, he was grave.

“I say—­it was nice of you.”

She held out her hand.

“And now—­as you’re not dead—­I’m off.”

“Oh no, you’re not.  You’re going to stay and have tea and I’m going to walk back with you.”

She stayed.

* * * * *

They walked over the moor by Karva.  And as they went he talked to her as he hadn’t talked before.  It was all about himself and his tone was very serious.  He talked about his work and (with considerable reservations and omissions) about his life in Leeds, and about his ambition.  He told her what he had done and why he had done it and what he was going to do.  He wasn’t going to stay in Garthdale all his life.  Not he.  Presently he would want to get to the center of things. (He forgot to mention that this was the first time he had thought of it.) Nothing would satisfy him but a big London practice and a name.  He might—­ultimately—­specialise.  If he did he rather thought it would be gynaecology.  He was interested in women’s cases.  Or it might be nervous diseases.  He wasn’t sure.  Anyhow, it must be something big.

For under Gwenda Cartaret’s eyes his romantic youth became fiery and turbulent inside him.  It not only urged him to tremendous heights, it made him actually feel that he would reach them.  For a solid three-quarters of an hour, walking over the moor by Karva, he had ceased to be one of the obscurest of obscure little country doctors.  He was Sir Steven Rowcliffe, the great gynaecologist, or the great neurologist (as the case might be) with a row of letters after his name and a whole column under it in the Medical Directory.

And Gwenda Cartaret’s eyes never for a moment contradicted him.  They agreed with every one of his preposterous statements.

She didn’t know that it was only his romantic youth and that he never had been and never would be more youthful than he was for that three-quarters of an hour.  On the contrary, to her youth he seemed to have left youth behind him, and to have grown suddenly serious and clear-sighted and mature.

And then he stopped, right on the moor, as if he were suddenly aware of his absurdity.

“I say,” he said, “what must you think of me?  Gassing about myself like that.”

“I think,” she said, “it’s awfully nice of you.”

“I don’t suppose I shall do anything really big.  Do you?”

She was silent.

“Honestly now, do you think I shall?”

“I think the things you’ve done already, the things that’ll never be heard of, are really big.”

His silence said, “They are not enough for me,” and hers, “For me they are enough.”

“But the other things,” he insisted—­“the things I want to do——­Do you think I’ll do them?”

“I think”—­she said slowly—­“in fact I’m certain that you’ll do them, if you really mean to.”