sufferer.  It was as bad as keeping a lark in a cage.  She had tried a cat:  but so often she did not get home till late and that was just the time when the cat wanted to be out; so that they seldom met.  He suggested a parrot.  His experience of them was that they had no regular hours and would willingly sit up all night, if encouraged, and talk all the time.  Joan’s objection to running a parrot was that it stamped you as an old maid; and she wasn’t that, at least, not yet.  She wondered if she could make an owl really happy.  Minerva had an owl.

He told her how one spring, walking across a common, after a fire, he had found a mother thrush burnt to death upon her nest, her charred wings spread out in a vain endeavour to protect her brood.  He had buried her there among the blackened thorn and furze, and placed a little cross of stones above her.

“I hope nobody saw me,” he said with a laugh.  “But I couldn’t bear to leave her there, unhonoured.”

“It’s one of the things that make me less certain than I want to be of a future existence,” said Joan:  “the thought that animals can have no part in it; that all their courage and love and faithfulness dies with them and is wasted.”

“Are you sure it is?” he answered.  “It would be so unreasonable.”

They had tea at an old-fashioned inn beside a stream.  It was a favourite resort in summer time, but now they had it to themselves.  The wind had played pranks with her hair and he found a mirror and knelt before her, holding it.

She stood erect, looking down at him while seeming to be absorbed in the rearrangement of her hair, feeling a little ashamed of herself.  She was “encouraging” him.  There was no other word for it.  She seemed to have developed a sudden penchant for this sort of thing.  It would end in his proposing to her; and then she would have to tell him that she cared for him only in a cousinly sort of way—­whatever that might mean—­and that she could never marry him.  She dared not ask herself why.  She must manoeuvre to put it off as long as possible; and meanwhile some opening might occur to enlighten him.  She would talk to him about her work; and explain to him how she had determined to devote her life to it to the exclusion of all other distractions.  If, then, he chose to go on loving her—­or if he couldn’t help it—­that would not be her fault.  After all, it did him no harm.  She could always be gracious and kind to him.  It was not as if she had tricked him.  He had always loved her.  Kneeling before her, serving her:  it was evident it made him supremely happy.  It would be cruel of her to end it.

The landlady entered unexpectedly with the tea; but he did not rise till Joan turned away, nor did he seem disconcerted.  Neither did the landlady.  She was an elderly, quiet-eyed woman, and had served more than one generation of young people with their teas.