“It would have broken my heart to leave it!” she thought with sudden conviction. She looked at the bookcases filled with books all the more precious, because for three months she had not touched them. Finally she reached for a volume on one of the upper shelves, and taking it to the sofa, turned to a poem she loved. “_Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses, O toi, tous mes plaisirs! O toi, tous mes devoirs! Tu te rappelleras la beauté des caresses, La douceur du foyer et le charme des soirs, Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses!_ “_Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon, Et les soirs au balcon, voilés de vapeurs roses. Que ton sein m’était doux! que ton cœur m’était bon! Nous avons dit souvent d’impérissables choses, Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon._” Anne let the book slip into her lap. “_Nous avons dit souvent d’impérissables choses_,” she repeated softly. It was of these “imperishable things” she was thinking, the things of the spirit, that persist when as with her the desire of the flesh is dead, and the lust of the eyes. The imperishable things that last into the evening of life, when the stars come out, and ever nearer and nearer draw the “murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.” XXIII It was two years before François Fontenelle re-visited Fairholme Court. Again it was June, and Anne had taken him to the garden, full of pride to show him her roses in the height of their beauty. They strolled round its paths talking of a thousand things, and finally sat down under the arch, over which there poured a cascade of snowy bloom. The table in front of the bench was littered with papers, which François began idly to examine. “_The New Thought!_” he exclaimed, holding up one of the leaflets between his finger and thumb. “What on earth are _you_ doing with this latter day product?” Anne laughed. “A strenuous young thing who is spending her holiday in the village brought a heap of papers this morning, and begged me to read them. She said it was scandalous that such an intelligent woman as I appeared to her, should be ignorant of the ‘movement,’” she added demurely. “Whatever the modern young woman lacks, it isn’t cheek,” he returned. “Well! What do you think of the ‘no property’ idea in the eternally boring sex question? Let me see, there are to be state babies, aren’t there? Have state lovers been suggested yet, or is that a figment of my imagination?” Anne sighed. “Perhaps I’m too old for it,” she said. “I know I don’t understand it. It all seems to me so terribly business-like, and I was never a business woman.” François laughed. “I should as soon expect one of these roses to start company promoting.” “One thing I feel quite sure about,” she went on, drawing her lace shawl round her shoulders. “The men and women who write some of these letters have never loved.”