"The child does look happy," he said in his laziest voice one evening when he knew his look had been bent for a rashly long moment on Rose. "Happy and pretty," he murmured to himself, and he watched his youngest guest with earnestness. Then he sat down near Rose on a low deck-chair, and put away the glasses he held in his pocket. "I'm not sure I don't get as much pleasure out of the hazy world I see about me as you long-sighted people do; the colours are marvellous." Rose looked at him in surprise. "But Edmund, don't you see more than haze?" "Oh, yes, I can see a foreground, and then the rest melts away. I don't know what is meant by a middle distance--that's why I can't shoot." Rose sat up with an eager look on her face. "I never knew that; I only thought you did not care for shooting." There was a silence of several minutes, and neither looked at the other. At last Edmund rose and went to the side of the boat and looked over at the water, and then, turning half-way towards her, said: "Why does it startle you so much?" "Oh, I don't know." "But you do know perfectly well." "Indeed, Edmund." Her face was flushed and her voice a little tremulous. "You shall tell me." He spoke more imperiously than he knew. "I can't, indeed I can't." "No," he said; "it would be a difficult thing to say, I admit." "Couldn't we read something?" said Rose. "No, no use at all. I am going to tell you why you are so glad I am short-sighted." "But I am not glad." "I repeat that you are, and this is the reason why." "You shall not say it," said Rose, now more and more distressed and embarrassed. "It's because you never knew before why I did not volunteer for the war, that is why you are so glad." "Yes," he thought in anger, "she has had this thing against me all the time; it is one of the defences she has set up." But he was hurt all the same--hurt and angry; he wanted to punish her. "So all the time you have thought this of me?" "No, indeed, indeed, Edmund, it wasn't that. I never meant that; I knew you were never that, do believe me." "Well, if I do believe you so far, what did you think?" Rose let her book lie on her knee and leant over it with her hands clasped. "I thought that perhaps," she faltered, "you had been too long in the habit of doing nothing much, and that you had grown a little lazy--at least, I didn't really think so, but that idea has struck me." She came and stood by him. "Oh, Edmund, why do you make me say things when I don't want to, when I hate saying them, when they are not really true at all." She was deeply moved, and he felt that in one sense she was in his power. He gave a bitter sigh.