“I’ve no use for them,” he said doggedly.

“—­And Christine wanted to go.”  She added after a moment, gently, as though she were feeling through the dark, “—­is dying to go, Robert.”

“You’re just imagining it.  She’s never cared for things like that—­only for my getting ahead with my work—­my finals.”

“Didn’t you hear her ask about the trees?”

He looked back over his shoulder like a suddenly frightened child.

“Yes.  It—­it didn’t mean anything, though.  It was just for something to say.”

“She said a great deal more than she meant to.”

“We’ve mapped out everything—­every ha’penny—­every minute.”

“Let me help, Robert.  I’ve got such a lot.  I’ve no one else.  I could make it easier for you both.  I should be happier, too.  And you could pay me back afterwards with interest—­a hundred per cent.—­I don’t care what.”

But now feeling through the dark she had reached the barrier.  He answered stonily.

“Thanks.  We’ve never owed anything.  We shan’t begin now.”

She slipped into her coat.  She tugged her soft hat down over her hair.  There was more than anger in her quick, impatient movements.  She was going because she couldn’t bear it any more.  She had given in.  She would never come back.  And at that fear he broke out with a desperate cunning.

“It’s too bad to be angry with me.  I—­I want to go.”

“And I’ve asked you——?

“Because you want me?”

“Of course.  It will be the first chance we’ve had to really talk——­”

“It can’t matter—­just for once,” he pleaded with himself.

“It might matter a great deal.”

She went on down the stairs, very slowly, lingeringly.  He leant over the creaking banisters, trying to see her.

“Francey—­you duffer—­you haven’t even told me where to meet you.”

“Paddington—­the Booking Office—­10.15.”

He held his breath.  Her voice had sounded like that of a spirit laughing out of the black veil beneath.  It did not come again.  He could not even hear her footsteps.  She had vanished.  But he waited, trembling before the wonder of his own impulse.

Supposing he had yielded—­had taken her hands and kissed them—­kissed that pale, beloved face, he who had never kissed anyone but Christine since his mother died?

He had not done it.  It had been too difficult to yield.  But he stood there, dreaming, with his hot eyes pressed into his hands, whilst out of the magic quiet rose wave after wave of enchantment, engulfing him.

2

They agreed that Francey had not boasted about her hill.  It stood up boldly out of the rolling sea of field and common land and was tree-crowned, with primroses shining amongst the young grass.  From its summit they could see toy villages and church, spires and motors and char-a-bancs running like alarmed insects along the white, winding lanes.  But apparently no one saw the hill.  No one came to it.  Since it was everything that picnic parties demanded in the way of a hill, it was only reasonable to accept Francey’s theory that it was not really there at all—­or at most only there for her particular convenience.