They went down the grassy slope with its groups of half-grown trees; through an orchard shot with slanting, yellow sunlight,—­the golden fruit, harvested by the morning winds, littering the ground; and then by a gate into a dimpled, emerald pasture slope where the Guernseys were feeding along a water run.  They spoke of trivial things that found no place in Austen’s memory, and at times, upon one pretext or another, he fell behind a little that he might feast his eyes upon her.

Eben was not at the dairy, and Austen betraying no undue curiosity as to his whereabouts, they walked on up the slopes, and still upward towards the crest of the range of hills that marked the course of the Blue.  He did not allow his mind to dwell upon this new footing they were on, but clung to it.  Before, in those delicious moments with her, seemingly pilfered from the angry gods, the sense of intimacy had been deep; deep, because robbing the gods together, they had shared the feeling of guilt, had known that retribution would coma.  And now the gods had locked their treasure-chest, although themselves powerless to redeem from him the memory of what he had gained.  Nor could they, apparently, deprive him of the vision of her in the fields and woods beside him, though transformed by their magic into a new Victoria, keeping him lightly and easily at a distance.

Scattering the sheep that flecked the velvet turf of the uplands, they stood at length on the granite crown of the crest itself.  Far below them wound the Blue into its vale of sapphire shadows, with its hillsides of the mystic fabric of the backgrounds of the masters of the Renaissance.  For a while they stood in silence under the spell of the scene’s enchantment, and then Victoria seated herself on the rock, and he dropped to a place at her side.

“I thought you would like the view,” she said; “but perhaps you have been here, perhaps I am taking you to one of your own possessions.”

He had flung his hat upon the rock, and she glanced at his serious, sunburned face.  His eyes were still fixed, contemplatively, on the Yale of the Blue, but he turned to her with a smile.

“It has become yours by right of conquest,” he answered.

She did not reply to that.  The immobility of her face, save for the one look she had flashed upon him, surprised and puzzled him more and more —­the world—­old, indefinable, eternal feminine quality of the Spring.

“So you refused to be governor? she said presently,—­surprising him again.

“It scarcely came to that,” he replied.

“What did it come to?” she demanded.

He hesitated.

“I had to go down to the capital, on my father’s account, but I did not go to the convention.  I stayed,” he said slowly, “at the little cottage across from the Duncan house where—­you were last winter.”  He paused, but she gave no sign.  “Tom Gaylord came up there late in the afternoon, and wanted me to be a candidate.”