Will stammered, and hesitated. “Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve begun already, Linnet,” he answered, fingering the pencil-case that hung from his watch chain with ill-concealed agitation. “I’ve been walking about for a fortnight through the mountains alone—Florian wanted to come, but I wouldn’t bring him with me, that I might have time for thinking; and everything I saw seemed somehow to recall . . . well, why shouldn’t I confess it?—those days on the Küchelberg. I thought of you a great deal—I mean of your voice and the sort of words and chords that would be likely to suit you. I always compose best in the open air. The breeze whispers bars to me. And I’ve begun a few songs—just your part in the play, you know—words and airs together, Wagner-wise—that’s how I always do it. The country I passed through brought the music of itself; it all spoke to me direct—and I thought it would be something new to bring this breezy Alpine air to freshen the stuffy atmosphere of a London theatre.” “Have you got what you’ve done with you?” Linnet inquired, with deep interest. “It’s here in my knapsack,” Will answered, half reluctant. “Ah, do let me see it!” And she pressed one hand to her breast with native southern vehemence. “It’s only in pencil, roughly scratched on bits of paper over rocks or things anyhow,” Will replied, apologetically. “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to read one word of it. But, if you like, you can try,” and he pulled it forth and opened it. For twenty minutes or more of terrestrial time Linnet sat entranced in the seventh heavens. She tried over parts of the songs, half to herself, half to Will, with many an “Oh” and an “Ach, Gott,” and was charmed and delighted with them. They were written straight at her—not a doubt in the world about that; and they suited her voice and manner admirably. It’s so innocent for a singer to sit on the grassy mountain sides like this, with a poet and composer close at hand to consult and talk over the work they mean to produce together. This was art, pure art; the sternest moralist could surely find nothing to object to in it Linnet didn’t even feel bound to give another hard squeeze to the poor much-battered, and hardly-used Madonna. She only sat and sang—with Will smiling by her side—there in the delicate mountain air, among the whispering pines, gazing across at the stainless peaks, and thrilling through to the finger tips. “O Herr Will,” she cried at last, “how lovely it is out here—how high, how soft, how pure—how much lovelier than in London! I’ve never enjoyed anything in my life so much, since,” . . . her voice sank low—“since those days on the Küchelberg.”