Yes--Rachel and the girls, they were all in the high barn, feeding the greedy maw of the threshing machine; a business which strained muscles and backs, and choked noses and throats with infinitesimal particles of oil and the fine flying chaff. He watched Rachel a few minutes as she lifted and pitched--a typical figure of a New Labour, which is also a New Beauty, on this old earth. Then he drew her away, flung off his tunic, and took her place, while she, smiling and panting, her hands on her sides, leaned against the wall, and watched in her turn. Then when the engine stopped, and the great hopper full of grain lay ready for the miller, they found themselves alone in the barn for a minute. The girls and Janet had gone to milk, and Hastings with them. There was a lantern in the barn, which showed Rachel in the swirl of the corn dust with which the barn was full, haloed and golden with it, like a Homeric goddess in a luminous cloud. Her soft brown head, her smile, showing the glint of her white teeth, her eyes, and all the beauty of her young form, in its semi-male dress--they set his blood on fire. Just as he was, in his khaki shirt-sleeves, he came to her, and took her in his arms. She clung to him passionately. "I thought you were never coming." It was one of the reproaches that have no sting. "I came at the first moment. I left a score of things undone." "Have you been thinking of me?" "Always--always. And you?" "Nearly always," she said teasingly. "But I have been making up my accounts." "Avaricious woman!--thinking of nothing but money. Dear--I have several bits of news for you. But let me wash!" He held out his hands--"I am not fit to touch you!" She disengaged herself quietly. "What news?" "Some letters first," he said, smiling. "A budget and a half--mostly for you, from all my home people. Can you face it?" "In reply to your cable?" "My most extravagant cable! On the top of course of sacks of letters!" "Before we were engaged?" He laughed as he thrust his arms into his tunic. "My mother seems to have guessed from my very first mention of you." "But--she doesn't know yet?" said Rachel, slowly. They had passed out of the range of the lantern. He could not see her face, could only just hear her voice. "No, not yet, dear. My last long letter should reach her next week." Her hand lay close in his as they groped their way to the door. When he unlatched it they came out into the light of a stormy sunset. The rain had momentarily ceased, and there were fiery lines of crimson burning their way through the black cloud masses in the western sky. The red light caught Rachel's face and hair. But even so, it seemed to him that she was pale. "I say--you've done too much threshing!" he said with energy. "Don't do any more--get an extra man." "Can't find one," she said, laughing at him, but rather languidly. "I'll go and get the tea ready."