The fact remained that there was no one he wanted to marry, that he no longer wanted to marry at all; his wish to marry Blanche had been an exigency of the situation; in himself his instinct against inroads on privacy would never have inclined him towards it.  Also there was no one girl he wanted, and he told himself there never would be again; all personal emotion was drained away from him.  The only girl he even knew at all was Phoebe, and at the idea of her in connection with himself he smiled.  That would indeed be giving the lie to all he had struggled after—­to the vision of the Cloom to be that he had built up with much work and many dreams.

Suddenly as he lay on the grass he felt tired, so tired that it seemed to him he did not so very much want anything after all, and that a leaden weariness was the worst thing he would have to fight against.  He laid his face in the warm fragrant grass and let his hands lie out on either side of him, then stretched to the extent of his limbs, and rolled on his back.  Wanda, eager to be bounding on once more, licked his cheek with her warm, quick-moving tongue, and he rubbed her head against him and told her she was becoming a fussy old lady.  Still, it was time he went on to Vellan-Clowse; the sun was near the rim of the burning sea, and far below the foam was tinged with fire.  He scrambled to his feet and went on.

At the mill he found he had been wrong in his conjecture and Phoebe had not yet heard from Vassie.  She was looking pale and thin; there were shadows under her soft eyes, and her mouth drooped at the corners.  Ishmael’s news stung her to interest and to enthusiasm for Vassie, but seemed, when she had cooled down, only to make her melancholy deeper.  At supper—­to which Ishmael needed little pressing to stay, for in talk and companionship he forgot his vacant house—­she was obviously trying to make herself pleasant and bright; she would not have been Phoebe if she had allowed her own comfort to come before that of others.

Phoebe was changed in this past year; she was no longer so sprightly in her little flirtations, her tongue had lost its rustic readiness, her eyes held a furtive something, as though she were always watching some memory.  Her prettiness had gained in quality however, and her charm, though more conscious, was more certain.  Curiously enough, the charm struck Ishmael for the first time now that he saw her subdued, not troubling to exert it save mechanically.  He was sorry for that lassitude of hers, and after supper, walking under the elms down the lush valley, he tried to fathom it.

“It’s nothing,” said Phoebe.  “I’m lonely, I suppose.  You know, there’s no one I’m really friends with, only Vassie and you, and I shan’t see her any more now.  And you never come near me....”

Ishmael felt a guilty pang as he realised this was true; he cast about to lead the talk elsewhere.

“You were great friends with Archelaus while he was at Botallack last autumn, I’ve heard,” he said teasingly.  “Indeed, I did think that even when I lost Vassie I might have another sister....”