“Oh, you’re right, too,” Robert muttered.  “It’s not my business.”

Cosgrave appealed sadly to Francey.

“He’s wild with me.  But a picnic—­you’d think any human being might go on a picnic——­”

“You’re going,” she answered quietly, “and Robert too.”

He did not take up the challenge.  He was too miserable.  He had not meant to break out like that.  As in the old days, he hungered for her approval, her good smile of understanding.  But as in the old days, too, beneath it all, was the dim consciousness of an antagonism, of their two wills poised against one another.

The car purred louder with exultation.  It came sliding out into the narrow, cobbled street.  It waited a moment, gathering itself together.

“I wonder where it’s going,” Cosgrave dreamed.  “I hope a jolly long way—­right to the other end of England.  I’d like to think of it going on and on through the whole world.”

Christine leaned forward, peering out dimly.

“Are the trees out yet, Robert?”

They looked at her in silence.  It was a strange thing to ask.  And yet not strange at all.  All day long she sat there and saw nothing but the squat, red-faced stable opposite.  Or if she went out it was to buy cheaply from the barrows in a mean side street.  And now she was remembering that there were trees somewhere, perhaps in bloom.

Even Miss Edwards looked queerly dashed and distressed.

“Now you’re asking something, Miss Forsyth.  There are trees in this little old village, but they aren’t real somehow, and I never notice ’em.  Well, we’ll know on Monday.  Please Heaven, it doesn’t rain.”

“I want to get out,” Cosgrave muttered; “out of here—­right away——­”

“I’ve not had a picnic—­not since I was a kid.  But I haven’t forgotten it, though.  Heaps to eat—­and an appetite——­ Oh, my!”

“And you can go on eating and eating,” Francey added greedily, “and it doesn’t seem to matter.”

“Egg and cress sandwiches——­”

“Ham pie——­”

“Sardines——­”

“Russian salad—­mayonnaise——­”

“And something jolly in a bottle.”

They laughed at one another.  But after that the quiet returned again.  Francey sat with her hands clasped behind her head and her chair tip-tilted against the wall.  To Robert, who watched her from out of the shadow, she seemed to be drifting farther and farther away on a dark, quiet, flowing river.

It grew to dusk.  The car had long since set out on its unknown journey.  The narrow street with its pungent stable odour had sunk into one of those deep silences which lie scattered like secret pools along the route of London’s endless processions.  And presently Mr. Ricardo, who had not moved or spoken, but had sat hunched together like a captive bird, leant forward with his finger to his lips.

Christine had fallen asleep.  Her hands lay folded upon her work and her face was still lifted to the black ridge of roof where the sun had vanished.  There was enchantment about her sleep, as though in the very midst of them she had begun to live a new, mysterious life of her own.  She had been the shadowy onlooker.  She became the central figure among them.