"Sleep sweetly--and dream of bulbs!" quoth Jean, peering at them over her shoulder. "Piers, I don't want to grow old. It doesn't seem possible that a time can _ever_ come when I shall be content to wear cashmere boots and sleep on a verandah while other people play in the sun. Do you believe that I shall really grow old?" Piers Rendall looked at her and his lips twitched, but his eyes did not soften--the hard brilliancy, which was their chief characteristic, became if anything a trifle more accentuated. It was a curious look for a man to cast at a girl with whom he was in love. _Was_ he in love with Jean? Vanna asked herself curiously for the hundredth time in the course of the last few days. If she had but known it, Rendall was engaged in asking himself the same question, and finding it almost as difficult to answer. At times, yes! He would have been less than a man if he had not been occasionally swept off his feet by the vivid beauty of that upturned face. Jean present--laughing, teasing, cajoling--could hold him captive. Ear and eye alike were busy in her presence, busy and charmed; haunting, everyday cares were thrust into the background, and discontent transformed into joy. For the hour it would seem as if the whole happiness of life were to laugh, and dance, and to rejoice in the sunshine. So far so good, but--Jean absent, the spell dissolved. The thought of her had no power to hold him; he could live tranquilly for months together, indifferent to, almost forgetful of, her existence. Here there was surely something wrong. This could be no real passion, which was so lightly dispelled. If he really loved as a man should love, the thought of her should be as chains drawing him to her side. Piers Rendall sighed. "Perhaps," he told himself with weary self-depredation--"perhaps I am incapable of real passion. It is the same story all round. I never get far enough. Nature made me in a mocking mood, cursing me with high aims and poor achievements. What I long for is never accomplished, what I attain never satisfies. If I am to find any happiness from life, I must adjust the balance and be satisfied with smaller things. It's time I married. Most men can live alone, but I'm sick of solitude. Ten years of life in chambers is enough for any man. Jean is a darling, a delight to the eyes; she's only a child, but she's sweet all through, and she'll grow. She'll be a dear woman. I am always happy in her company--it's only when we are apart that I have doubts. If she would have me, we should always be together. _Would_ she have me, I wonder?" He looked down at the girl as she walked by his side, critically, questioningly, with a certain wistfulness of expression, yet without a throb of the desperate, death-and-life tension which another man might have felt, which he himself understood enough to miss and to covet. "Shall I _never_ feel?" he asked himself, and his thin face twitched and twitched again.