He looked around him and, even amid such transcendental beauty as was there, shook his head. "I cannot live on air, Aura," he said bitterly. "No man can." Her face melted into gentle smiles. "There is the lunch-basket," she said. He turned aside almost with a curse. "It is easy to laugh," he began. "Is it so easy?" she asked, and once again her voice brought to him that sense of infinite pity, infinite denial. "Then let us laugh, Ned, while we can. Come, let us lose ourselves. Oh Ned! give me one day unspotted by the world, untouched by trivialities, just this one day!" And as she took his hand, the glamour, not of this world, but of that which lies hidden beyond it, above it, claimed possession of his soul. The blue mist closed in on them. They stood on the floor of heaven with the sky above them. * * * * * Down in the hollows with the silken fans of the half-opened beech-leaves overhead, a saffron-coloured azalea dropping its gold upon the blue, the pink campion struggling for a place amongst the blossoms, a tuft of white poet's-narcissus looking up from the pool of water into which a scarce-seen runlet dripped and dropped. What colour! What almost unimaginable beauty. * * * * * Out in the open, in a cup in the hills where the carpet of heaven-blue hyacinths dwarfed into closer growth showed like a shadowy cloud against the clearer blue of the sky. What dreamfulness! What peace! * * * * * Away on the springing heather on the mountain-top, with half Wales spread before you, and the westering sun obscured by just such a shadowy cloud, sending a great sloping corona of light rays to nestle in the dimples of the hills, and shine in shafted reflections on the distant sea. What visions of unending space, of ceaseless life! * * * * * "Is it not time?" she said at last as they sat in the sheep-shelter. The sun was beginning to sink in the west calmly, serenely. The light shone round them, purest gold. Down in the valley, the blue hyacinth mist grew darker, colder. "Yes! It is time," he said quietly. "It has been quite perfect," she said again. "Almost perfect," he assented; after all he was but human, and humanity does not live by sight alone. It craves to touch also. The motor was awaiting them where they had left it. She laid her hand on his for a second ere he started it. "Say it has been quite perfect, Ned," she pleaded. He looked at her and smiled. "I will not say it--you can say it for me." She was silent for a moment and then she spoke. "It has been quite perfect!"