She drifted into silence.  They were walking eastwards now, and before them was the great yellow haze which hung over the sun-enveloped city, a haze which stretched across the whole arc of the heavens, and underneath which were toiling the millions to whom his life was consecrated.  For a moment the grim inappropriateness of these hours struck him with a pang of remorse.  He felt almost like a traitor to be walking with this slim, beautiful girl whose face was hidden from him now in the mass of white blossoms.  And then his sense of proportion came to the rescue.  He knew that he had but one desire—­to work out his ends by the most effective means.  It did not even disturb him to reflect that for the first time for many years he had found pleasure in what was merely an interlude.

“We turn here,” she directed.  “You see, we are close to home now.  My uncle will be so glad to see you, Mr. Maraton, and I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you are coming to Lyndwood.”

“I only hope,” he said a little gravely, “that your uncle will not expect too much from my coming.  It seems churlish to refuse, and even though our views are as far apart as the poles, I know that your uncle means well.”

She smiled at him delightfully.

“I refuse to be depressed even by your solemn looks,” she declared.  “It is my twenty-fourth birthday to-day and I am still young enough to cling to my optimism.”

“Your birthday,” he remarked.  “I should have brought you an offering.”

She held up the roses.

“Nothing in the world,” she assured him softly, “could have given me more pleasure than these.  Now I am going to take you first into a little den where you will not be disturbed, and then fetch my uncle,” she added, as they passed into the house.  “I shall pray for your mutual conversion.  You won’t mind a very feminine room, will you?  Just now there are certain to be callers at any moment, and my uncle’s rooms are liable to all manner of intrusions.”

She threw open the door and ushered him into what seemed indeed to be a little fairy chamber, a chamber with yellow walls and yellow rug, white furniture, oddments of china and photographs, silver-grey etchings, water-colour landscapes, piles of books and magazines.  On a small table stood a yellow Sevres vase, full of roses.

“It’s a horrible place for a man to sit in,” she said, looking around her.  “You must take that wicker chair and throw away as many cushions as you like.  Now I am going to fetch my uncle, and remember, please,” she concluded, looking back at him from the door, “if I have seemed frivolous this morning, I am not always so.  More than anything I am looking forward, down at Lyndwood, to have you, if you will, talk to me seriously.”

“Shall I dare to argue with you, I wonder?” he asked.

She smiled at him.

“Why not?  A matter of courage?”

“The bravest person in the world,” he declared, “remembers always that little proverb about discretion.”