“You are not angry with me?” she asked, a little timidly.

“Angry?  Why should I be?” he answered.  “The afternoon has been delightful.  I can’t tell you how grateful I feel.”

“All the same,” she said, “I think you know that I laid a plot to bring you here because I was curious about this companion of yours, for whose sake you refused my invitation.  However, you see I am penitent.  Poor girl, how can one help feeling sorry for her!  You forgive me?”

“I forgive you,” he answered.

She closed her parasol and leaned back in her corner of the seat.  She seemed to be studying his expression.

“There is something different about you this afternoon,” she said.  “I miss a look from your face, something in your tone when you are talking to me.”

He shook his head.

“I am not conscious of any difference.”

She laughed softly, but she seemed, even then, a little annoyed.

“You are not appreciating me,” she declared.  “Do you know that here, in the wilderness, I have put on a Paquin muslin gown, white shoes from Paris, white silk stockings—­of which you can see at least two inches,” she added, glancing downwards.  “I have risked my complexion by wearing no hat, so that you can see my hair really at its best.  I looked in the glass before you came and even my vanity was satisfied.  Now I bring you away with me and find you a seat in a bower of roses, and you look up into that elm tree as though you were more anxious to find out where the thrush was singing than to look at me.”

He laughed.  Through the raillery of her words he could detect a certain half-girlish earnestness which seemed to him delightful.

“Try and remember,” he said, “how wonderful a day like this must seem to any one like myself, who has spent day after day for many months in Tooley Street.  I have been sitting up on the hills, listening to the wind in the trees.  You can’t imagine the difference when you’ve been used to hearing nothing but the rumble of drays on their way to Bermondsey.”

She looked up at him.

“You know,” she declared, “you are rather a mysterious person.  I cannot make up my mind that you are forced to live the life you do.”

“You do not suppose,” he replied, “that any sane person would choose it?  It is well enough now, thanks to you,” he added, dropping his voice a little.  “A week ago, I was earning twenty-eight shillings a week, checking invoices and copying letters—­an errand boy’s work; pure, unadulterated drudgery, working in a wretched atmosphere, without much hope of advancement or anything else.”

“But even then you leave part of my question unanswered,” she insisted.  “You were not born to this sort of thing?”

“I was not,” he admitted; “but what does it matter?”

“You don’t care to tell me your history?” she asked lazily.  “Sometimes I am curious about it.”

“If I refuse,” he answered, “it may give you a false impression.  I will tell you a little, if I may.  A few sentences will be enough.”