As they left the town finally and bowled away up the deserted road his heart beat hard for joy. He rooted in the bag and began to eat the cherries, three or four at a time, chucking the stones over the side of the buggy. They were delicious, so plump and cold, without a spot or a bruise on them. Look at those two, now—black one side and white the other—perfect! A perfect little pair of Siamese twins. And he stuck them in his button-hole. . . . By Jove, he wouldn’t mind giving that chap up there a handful—but no, better not. Better wait until he had been with him a bit longer. He began to plan what he would do with his Saturday afternoons and his Sundays. He wouldn’t go to the club for lunch on Saturday. No, cut away from the office as soon as possible and get them to give him a couple of slices of cold meat and half a lettuce when he got home. And then he’d get a few chaps out from town to play tennis in the afternoon. Not too many—three at most. Beryl was a good player, too. . . . He stretched out his right arm and slowly bent it, feeling the muscle. . . . A bath, a good rub-down, a cigar on the verandah after dinner. . . . On Sunday morning they would go to church—children and all. Which reminded him that he must hire a pew, in the sun if possible and well forward so as to be out of the draught from the door. In fancy he heard himself intoning extremely well: “When thou did overcome the _Sharp_ness of Death Thou didst open the _King_dom of Heaven to _all_ Believers.” And he saw the neat brass-edged card on the corner of the pew—Mr. Stanley Burnell and family. . . . The rest of the day he’d loaf about with Linda. . . . Now they were walking about the garden; she was on his arm, and he was explaining to her at length what he intended doing at the office the week following. He heard her saying: “My dear, I think that is most wise.” . . . Talking things over with Linda was a wonderful help even though they were apt to drift away from the point. Hang it all! They weren’t getting along very fast. Pat had put the brake on again. Ugh! What a brute of a thing it was. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach. A sort of panic overtook Burnell whenever he approached near home. Before he was well inside the gate he would shout to anyone within sight: “Is everything all right?” And then he did not believe it was until he heard Linda say: “Hullo! Are you home again?” That was the worst of living in the country—it took the deuce of a long time to get back. . . . But now they weren’t far off. They were on the top of the last hill; it was a gentle slope all the way now and not more than half a mile. Pat trailed the whip over the mare’s back and he coaxed her: “Goop now. Goop now.”