but I don’t care so long as you—­so long as you don’t.  I’m not conceited really, but it looks like conceit—­me talking like this and assuming that you’re ready to stand and listen.  I assure you it isn’t conceit.  I only know—­that’s all.  It’s difficult for you to say anything—­I can feel that—­but I’d like you just to tell me you’re glad I came and glad I’ve spoken.  I’d just like to hear that.’

She gazed fondly at him, at the male creature in whom she could find only perfection, and she was filled with glorious pride that her image should have drawn this strong, shrewd self-possessed man across the Atlantic.  It was incredible, but it was true.  ‘And,’ said the secret feminine in her, ‘why not?’

He waited for her answer, facing her.

‘Oh, yes!’ she breathed.  ‘Oh, yes!...  I’m glad—­I’m so glad.’

‘I wish,’ he broke out, ’I wish I could explain to you what I think of you, what I feel about you.  You’re so quiet and simple and direct and yet—­you don’t know it, but you are.  You’re absolutely the most—­Oh! it’s no use.’

She saw that he was growing very excited, and this, too, gave her deep pleasure.

‘We’re in a hell of a fix!’ he sighed.

Like many women, she took a fearful, almost thrilling joy in hearing a man swear earnestly and religiously.

‘That’s it,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing to be done?’

‘Nothing to be done?’ he demanded, imperiously.  ‘Nothing to be done?’

She examined his face, which was close to hers, with a meditative, expectant smile.  She loved to see him out of repose, eager, masterful, and daring.  ‘What is there to be done?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know yet,’ he said firmly, ‘I must think.’  Then, in a delicious surrender, she felt towards him as though they were on the brink of a rushing river, and he was about to pick her up in his arms, like a trifle, and carry her safely through the flood; and she had the illusion of pressing her face, which she knew he adored, against his shoulder.

‘Oh, you innocent angel!’ he cried, seizing her hand (she let it lie inert), ’do you suppose I’m the sort of man to sit down and cross my legs and say that fate, or whatever you call it, hasn’t done me right?  Do you suppose that two sensible persons like you and me are going to be beaten by a mere set of circumstances?  We aren’t children, and we aren’t fools.’

‘But——­’

‘You’re not afraid, are you?’ He drank in her charm.

‘What of?’

‘Anything.’

‘It’s when you aren’t there,’ she murmured tenderly.  She really thought, then, that by some marvellous plan he would perform the impossible feat of reconciling the duty of fulfilling love with all the other duties.

‘I shall reckon it up,’ he said.  ‘Ah!’

Silence fell.  And with the feel of the grass under her feet, and the soft clouds overhead, and the patient trees, and the glare in the southern smoke, and the lamps of Bursley, and the solitary red signal in the valley, she breathed out her spirit like an aerial essence, and merged into unity with him.  And the strange far-off noises of nocturnal industry wandered faintly across the void and seemed fraught with a mysterious significance.  Everything, in that unique hour, had the same mysterious significance.