The rains came heavily toward the end of October; and November was grey and wet and rather warm. But open fires became necessary in the house, and now they regularly reddened the twilight in library and living-room when the early November dusk brought Athalie and Clive indoors. Hither they came, the fire-lit hearth their trysting place after they had exchanged their rain-drenched clothes for something dry; and there they curled up on the wide sofas and watched the swift darkness fall, and the walls and ceiling redden. It was an hour which Athalie had once read of as the "Children's Hour" and now she understood better its charming significance. And she kept it religiously, permitting herself to do nothing, and making Clive defer anything he had to do, until after dinner. Then he might read his paper or book, and she could take up her sewing if she chose, or study, or play, or write the few letters that she cared to write. Clive wrote no more, now. In this first year together they desired each other only, indifferent to all else outside. It was to her the magic year of fulfilment; to him an enchanted interlude wherein only the girl beside him mattered. Athalie sewed a great deal on odd, delicate, sheer materials where narrowness and length ruled proportions, and where there seemed to be required much lace and many little ribbons. Also she hummed to herself as she sewed, singing under her breath endless airs which had slipped into her head she scarce knew when or how. An odd and fragrant freshness seemed to cling to her making her almost absurdly youthful, as though she had suddenly dropped back to her girlhood. Clive noticed it. "You look about sixteen," he said. "My heart is younger, dear." "How young?" "You know when it was born, don't you? Very well, it is as many days old as I have been in love with you. Before that it was a muscle capable merely of sturdy friendship." One day a packet came from New York for her. It contained two rings, one magnificent, the other a plain circlet. She kissed him rather shyly, wore both that evening, but not again. "I am not ashamed," she explained serenely. "Folkways are now a matter of indifference to me. Civilisation must offer me a better argument than it has offered hitherto before I resign to it my right in you, or deny your right to me." He knew that civilisation would lock them out and remain unconcerned as to what became of them. Doubtless she knew it too, as she sat there sewing on the frail garment which lay across her knee and singing blithely under her breath some air with cadence like a berceuse. * * * * * During the "Children's Hour" she sat beside him, always quiet; or if stirred from her revery to a brief exchange of low-voiced words, she soon relapsed once more into that happy, brooding silence by the firelight. Then came dinner, and the awakened gaiety of unquenched spirits; then the blessed evening hours with him.