"How could I? A woman cannot take the first step. You impressed upon me in our first meeting that you meant to be nothing to me; that I was to have no hopes of being anything more than a caretaker and housekeeper. Why should I show you my feelings towards you, before you showed me yours?" "I have been miserable," Justin owned. "I have almost been jealous of my own children when they gathered round you in the evening. I could not stand it any longer. I had to get away. You seemed so aloof and indifferent." "I wasn't really. I knew you were not happy. I am quick in reading faces, and I read yours like an open book. I longed to comfort you, and yet how could I? You have been looking so lonely and so wistful, that my heart ached for you." "I have felt like a lost soul. I was so close to you, and yet so far." Then he stooped and kissed her passionately. "I shall demand a great deal of comfort from you now," he said in a tone of such exquisite satisfaction that Anstice broke into a low laugh. "You are such a boy sometimes," she said. They had their picnic lunch in that mossy hollow, and every barrier rolled away between them. Hours sped away like moments. Justin took her over the lake again, and they talked of many things. When they eventually reached home about four in the afternoon, their faces were radiant. Josie met them in the hall, and said with her usual frankness: "Why, Steppie, you look glorious! You must have had a topping time! And Georgie and me have been quarrelling all the afternoon. You've left us such a longtime!" "Have I?" said Anstice. "But you mustn't depend upon me to keep the peace between you." "We began to argue about you and Dad. Georgie said you didn't really like Dad being home. You were happier with us, when there was no one to interfere, and I said you laughed much more when he was in the house, and that you were quite miserable the first day he had left us; and then we got to who you really liked best; and then after Ruffie, I thought you liked me, and she said you liked her, and then she reminded me of all the nasty things I did and said to you, and I reminded her of her disgusting ways, and then we went on and on until we came to hate each other. And then we knocked each other down, and now she's locked herself into our room, and I can't get in. Will you come up and make her open the door?" So Anstice was brought down from Paradise to earth, and she left Justin and went upstairs to assure the little girls, as she had often assured them before, that she liked them equally well, but that the only thing she did not like and would not have in the house was bad temper and quarrelling. Bob Falkland came over to see Justin when he was at tea, and Anstice and he did not have any more time together till they sat out on the terrace after dinner was over.