Then I hurl my little posy away from me into the mud, as far as it will go.  What has become of my patience? my sunny mildness?  Then, as the recollection of the velvet-gown and mob-cap episode recurs to me, I repent me, and, crossing the road, pick up again my harmless catkins and snow-drops, and rearrange them.  I have hardly finished wiping the mire from the tender, lilac-veined snowdrop petals, before I hear his voice in the distance, in conversation with some one.  Clearly, Delilah is coming to see the last of him!  I expect that she mostly escorts them to the gate.  In my present frame of mind, it would be physically impossible for me to salute her with the bland civility which society enjoins on people of our stage of civilization.  I therefore remain sitting on my heap.

Presently, Roger emerges alone.  He does not see me at first, but looks up the road, and down the road, in search of me.  When, at last, he perceives me, no smile—­(as has ever hitherto been his wont)—­kindles his eyes and lips.  With unstirred gravity, he approaches me.

“Here you are at last!” cry I, scampering to meet him, but with a stress, from which human nature is unable to refrain, on the last two words.

“At last?” he repeats in a tone of surprise; “am I over time?—­Yes”—­ (looking at his watch)—­“so I am!  I had no idea of it; I hope you have not been long waiting.”

“I was here to the minute,” reply I, curtly; and again my tongue declines to refrain from accentuation.

“I beg your pardon!” he says, still speaking with unnecessary seriousness, as it seems to me, “I really had no idea of it.”

“I dare say not,” say I, with a little wintry grin; “I never heard that they had a clock in paradise.”

“In paradise!” he repeats, looking at me strangely with his keen, clear eyes, that seem to me to have less of a caress in them than they ever had before on meeting mine.  “What has paradise to say to it?  Do you imagine that I have been in paradise since I left you here?”

“I do not know, I am sure!” reply I, rather confused, and childishly stirring the stiff red mud with the end of my boot, “I believe they mostly do; Algy does—­” then afraid of drawing down the vial of his wrath on me a second time for my scandal-mongering propensities, I go on quickly; “Were you talking to yourself as you came down the drive?  I heard your voice as if in conversation.  I sometimes talk to myself when I am by myself, quite loud.”

“Do you?  I do not think I do; at least I am not aware of it; I was talking to Zephine.”

“Why did not she come to the gate, then?” inquire I, tartly; “did she know I was there? did not she want to see me?”

“I do not know; I did not ask her.”