When she reached the gate of the Governor’s house, her wish to see Patty had vanished, and she decided that she would go on to the library and ask for a book that she had recently heard John Benham discussing.  How much of her life now, in spite of its active impersonal interests, was beginning to centre in John Benham!  They were planning to be married in June, and beyond that month of roses, which was once so saturated with memories of her early romance, she saw ahead of her long years of tranquil happiness.  Well, she could not complain.  After all, was not tranquil happiness the best that life had to offer?

She had ascended the steps of the library, and was about to enter the swinging doors, when she turned and glanced back at the dappled boughs of an old sycamore, outlined so softly, with its budding leaves, against the green hill and the changeable blue of the sky.  The long walk was almost deserted.  A fountain played gently at the end of the slope; a few coloured nurses were dozing on a bench, while their be-ribboned charges scattered peanuts before a fluttering crowd of sparrows, pigeons, and squirrels; and, leaning on a rude crutch, a lame old negro woman was dragging a basket of brushwood to the brow of the hill.  The scene was very peaceful, wrapped in that languorous stillness which is the pervading charm of the South; and beyond the high spikes of the iron fence, the noise of passing street cars sounded far off and unreal.

She was still standing there, with her dreamy eyes on the old negress toiling up the hill with her basket of brushwood, when a man passed the fountain hurriedly, and came with a brisk, springy stride up the brick walk below the library.  As she watched him, at first without recognition, she thought vaguely that his rugged figure made a picture of embodied activity, of physical energy and enjoyment.  The next minute he reached the old negress, glanced at her casually in passing, and turning abruptly round, lifted the basket, and carried it to the top of the hill.  Then, as he looked back at the old woman, who limped after him, he laughed with boyish merriment, and Corinna saw in amazement that the man was Gideon Vetch.

“He is obliged to be theatrical,” remarked a voice behind her, and glancing over her shoulder she saw that she had been joined by a severe-looking young woman with several books under her arm.

“Is it that?” asked Corinna doubtfully, and she added to herself after a moment, “I wonder?”

A little later, as she was leaving the Square, Stephen overtook her, and she told him of the incident.  “The Governor is always breaking out like an epidemic where you least expect him,” she concluded with a smile.

“I know.  I’ve caught him.”  Though the young man’s eyes reflected her smile, his tone was serious.  “I can’t rid myself of the fellow.”

“Have you been to see him this morning?”

He laughed.  “I should say not!  But I’ve been in a worse fix.  I’ve just walked up the street with—­well, imagine it!—­that bounder Gershom.”