He lay there a long time quietly beneath the bank, careful not to attract the attention of the old gardener, who was methodically pushing his machine across and across the lawn.  How he wanted her with him then!  Wonderful that there could be in life such beauty and wild softness as made the heart ache with the delight of it, and in that same life grey rules and rigid barriers—­coffins of happiness!  That doors should be closed on love and joy!  There was not so much of it in the world!  She, who was the very spirit of this flying, nymph-like summer, was untimely wintered-up in bleak sorrow.  There was a hateful unwisdom in that thought; it seemed so grim and violent, so corpse-like, gruesome, narrow and extravagant!  What possible end could it serve that she should be unhappy!  Even if he had not loved her, he would have hated her fate just as much—­ all such stories of imprisoned lives had roused his anger even as a boy.

Soft white clouds—­those bright angels of the river, never very long away—­had begun now to spread their wings over the woods; and the wind had dropped so that the slumbrous warmth and murmuring of summer gathered full over the water.  The old gardener had finished his job of mowing, and came with a little basket of grain to feed the doves.  Lennan watched them going to him, the ring-doves, very dainty, and capricious, keeping to themselves.  In place of that old fellow, he was really seeing her, feeding from her hands those birds of Cypris.  What a group he could have made of her with them perching and flying round her!  If she were his, what could he not achieve—­to make her immortal—­like the old Greeks and Italians, who, in their work, had rescued their mistresses from Time! . . .

He was back in his rooms in London two hours before he dared begin expecting her.  Living alone there but for a caretaker who came every morning for an hour or two, made dust, and departed, he had no need for caution.  And when he had procured flowers, and the fruits and cakes which they certainly would not eat—­when he had arranged the tea-table, and made the grand tour at least twenty times, he placed himself with a book at the little round window, to watch for her approach.  There, very still, he sat, not reading a word, continually moistening his dry lips and sighing, to relieve the tension of his heart.  At last he saw her coming.  She was walking close to the railings of the houses, looking neither to right nor left.  She had on a lawn frock, and a hat of the palest coffee-coloured straw, with a narrow black velvet ribbon.  She crossed the side street, stopped for a second, gave a swift look round, then came resolutely on.  What was it made him love her so?  What was the secret of her fascination?  Certainly, no conscious enticements.  Never did anyone try less to fascinate.  He could not recall one single little thing that she had done to draw him to her.  Was it, perhaps, her very passivity, her native pride that never offered or asked anything, a sort of soft stoicism in her fibre; that and some mysterious charm, as close and intimate as scent was to a flower?