The south wind drove them along together. Judith felt it on her neck and arms, and in little, cool, soft touches about her face. She did not pause to question the happiness it brought her: there were other times for pauses and questions; her eyes were ringed with them, under the powder. She abandoned herself to her woman’s divine sense of ministry; and the man she loved observed that she did it with a certain inimitable poise, born of her confidence in him, which was as new as it was entrancing. People began to flock downstairs to supper in the wake of the Viceroy and the visiting royalty; the verandah emptied itself. Presently they became aware that they were alone. “You have dropped your fan,” Ancram said, and picked it up. He looked at its device for a moment, and then restored it. Judith’s hands were lying in her lap, and he slipped the fan into one of them, letting his own rest for a perceptible instant in the warm palm of the other. There ensued a tumultuous silence. He had only underscored a glance of hers; yet it seemed that he had created something—something as formidable as lovely, as embarrassing as divine. As he gently withdrew his hand she lifted her eyes to his with mute entreaty, and he saw that they were full of tears. He told himself afterwards that he had been profoundly moved; but this did not interfere with his realisation that it was an exquisite moment. Ancram regarded her gravely, with a smile of much consideration. He gave her a moment of time, and then, as she did not look up again, he leaned forward, and said, quite naturally and evenly, as if the proposition were entirely legitimate: “The relation between us is too tacit. Tell me that you love me, dear.”