[_Suddenly a cuckoo begins to call insistently. After a moment or two he looks up again._] Cuckoo too! Bravo! [_Again he returns to his book._] [_A moment later enter Evelyn Rivers. She also wears the lightest of summer dresses, as it is a cloudless day in May. On her head is a shady straw hat. As she approaches the tree a twig snaps under her foot and Cecil looks up. He jumps to his feet, closing book, and advances to her, eagerly holding out his right hand, keeping the book in his left._] [_Reproachfully._] Here you are at last! EVELYN. At last? CECIL. Yes. You're awfully late! [_Looks at watch._] EVELYN. Am I? CECIL. YOU know you are. I expected you at three. EVELYN. Why? I never said I'd come at three. Indeed, I never said I'd come at all. CECIL. No.--But it's always been three. EVELYN. Has it? CECIL. And now it's half-past. I consider I've been cheated out of a whole half-hour. EVELYN. I couldn't help it. Mother kept me. She wanted the roses done in the drawing-room. CECIL. How stupid of Mrs. Rivers! EVELYN. Mr. Harburton! CECIL. What's the matter? EVELYN. I don't think you _ought_ to call my mother stupid. CECIL. Why not--if she is stupid? Most parents are stupid, by the way. I've noticed it before. Mrs. Rivers ought to have thought of the roses earlier. The morning is the proper time to gather roses. Didn't you tell her that? EVELYN. I'm afraid I couldn't very well. You see it was really I who ought to have thought of the roses! I always do them. But this morning I forgot. CECIL. I see. [_Turning towards the tree._] Well, sit down now you are here. Isn't it a glorious day? EVELYN [_hesitating_]. I don't believe I ought to sit down. CECIL [_turns to her_]. Why not? There's no particular virtue about standing, is there? I hate standing. So let's sit down and be comfortable. [_She sits, so does he. She sits on bank under tree, left of it. He sits below bank to right of tree._] EVELYN. But _ought_ I to be sitting here with you? That's what I mean. It's--not as if I really _knew_ you, is it? CECIL. Not _know_ me? [_The chatter of birds dies away._] EVELYN. Not properly--we've never even been introduced. We just met quite by chance here in the wood. CECIL. Yes. [_Ecstatically._] What a glorious chance! EVELYN. Still, I'm sure mother wouldn't approve. CECIL. And _you_ say Mrs. Rivers isn't stupid! EVELYN [_laughing_]. I expect most people would agree with her. Most people would say you oughtn't to have spoken to a girl you didn't know like that. CECIL. Oh, come, I only asked my way back to the inn. EVELYN. There was no harm in asking your way, of course. But then we began talking of other things. And then we sat down under this tree. And we've sat under this tree every afternoon since. And that was a week ago. CECIL. Well, it's such an awfully jolly tree. EVELYN. I don't know _what_ mother would say if she heard of it! CECIL. Would it be something unpleasant?