She remembered Jennifer saying once, suddenly: “There’s one thing certain in my life: that is, that I shall always love you.” And afterwards her eyes had shone as if with tears and laughter. She remembered the surprise and joy, the flooding confidence of that moment; for it had been said so quietly, as if the realization of that “always” held for something sorrowful, a sobering sense of fate. Her manner had had a simplicity far removed from the usual effervescence and extravagance: she had seemed to state a fact to be believed in forever, without question. In her life where all else was uncertain, fluid and undirected, where all turned in mazes of heat and sound, that only was the deep unshaken foundation, the changeless thing.... She had seemed to mean that, sitting back in her chair, her arms laid along her lap, her hands folded together, everything about her quiet and tender, her eyes resting on Judith as they never had before or since, long and full, with a depth of untroubled love. That had been on a day in late April, at the beginning of the last Summer term. The happiness of reunion had never before seemed so complete. She had been in Scotland, Judith in Paris with Mamma, living resentfully in a reflection of Mamma’s alien existence. And then they were together again, and the summer term had opened with its unfailing week or so of exquisite weather. They had taken the green canoe one morning and wandered up the river to Grandchester. There was no one at all in the Orchard when they reached it. “Thank God I see no grey flannels,” said Jennifer. “I suppose the grass is still too wet for undergraduates to sit out.” A light breeze was blowing through the orchard, ruffling long grass, dandelions, buttercups, and daisies. Under the trees, the little white tables, set in the green silken brilliance, were dappled with running light and shadow, and the apple branches, clotted with full blossom, gleamed against the sky in a tender childish contrast of simple colours,--pale pink upon pale blue. The air was dazed with a bewilderment of bird-song. A rough brown terrier with golden eyes came prancing out on them, making known their presence with barkings half-ferocious, half-friendly. The dark waitress came lazily from the house, reluctant to serve them. ‘Is the Orchard open?’ ‘Oh yes, it’s open.’ ‘Can you let us have lunch?’ ‘Oh I dare say.’ ‘What can you let us have?’ ‘You can have a cheese omelette and some fruit-salad.’ ‘Divine,’ said Jennifer, and leapt for joy. ‘You better have it in the shelter. The grass is wet.’ She wandered away, smoothing her black untidy hair. She would not smile. There was something arresting and romantic in the thin sallow dark-browed young woman, preserving her ugliness, her faint unrelaxing bitterness among all the laughing renewals of her surroundings.