They came to a footpath through the hazel underwood that ran at right angles to the broad grass-way. She was sure he would make it his excuse for leaving her if he did not want to talk. And how should he possibly want to talk to her?... But Justin swung past the opening with no more than a switch with his cane at the low-hanging catkins that sent the pollen in clouds into the air. The target of sky still seemed a long way off. Almost she could have wished that he had left her, the silence oppressed her so. She supposed that she ought to talk to him about the war.... Ridiculous phrases flitted through her head—‘How do you like the trenches?’ ‘Do the guns make much noise?’—but she could think of no sensible opening. At last to her intense relief, for speech was always as much her protection as silence was his, he opened his mouth. “And how have you been rubbing along?” said Justin. “Oh, all right,” said Laura. Then brilliantly: “Have you been all right?” “Oh, quite all right,” said Justin. There was an interval for meditation. “Miss Adela pretty fit?” enquired Justin. “Oh, splendid,” said Laura. “I should have called—but it’s such a short leave—I wish you’d explain——” “Oh, she quite understood,” said Laura too readily, and felt the conversation sag in her hands like a caught cricket ball. She made an effort. “Have a decent crossing?” she hazarded. “Quite decent,” said Justin. “Oh—good!” said Laura. They paused again. Laura thought she would leave things to him: she knew by experience that if he did not want to talk nothing would make him: she did not think he was embarrassed, for he had always been too absorbed in himself to be self-conscious: therefore, if he talked, it would have some significance. She waited, passively curious; for the shock of meeting him had, for the time, numbed her. She was as calm as is the heart of a whirlwind. And soon, as she expected, he explained himself. “Mother’s been looking out for you,” he told her severely. “Why didn’t you come? She says you always come on Tuesdays.” ‘Why didn’t you come?’ She threw up her hands over the denseness of his Justinity, as she lied to him. “Oh—I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t know—I mean I forgot. I mean—I’ve been so fearfully busy this week.” “What with?” he enquired. “Oh, I don’t know,” said Laura. “Well, if you can, you might look in tomorrow,” he decided. “You see, I have to be out.” She glanced up at him: glanced down again. And then, suddenly, all the dry deadness of her heart broke, like the pope’s staff, into bud, into little blossoms of laughter, delicate bell-flowers that rang out in a thousand fairy carillons of healing mirth.