So he ate it and anything else he could find with appetite, and then went upstairs to shave and do his hair nicely and to put on a new suit of clothes, which he considered became him. Also, as he had still three-quarters of an hour to spare, he began to write a little poem about Isobel, which was a dismal failure, to tell the truth, since he could think of no satisfactory rhyme to her name, except “O well!” which, however he put it, sounded silly. At last, rather too early, he threw the sheet of paper into the fireplace and started, only to find that although it still lacked a quarter of an hour to eleven, Isobel was already seated on that tree. “What have you been doing to yourself?” she asked, “putting on those smart London clothes? I like the old grey things you had on last night ever so much better, and I wanted you to climb a tree to get me some young jackdaws. And—good gracious! Godfrey, your head smells like a whole hairdresser’s shop. Please come to the other side, to leeward of me.” He murmured something about liking to look tidy, and then remarked that she seemed rather finely dressed herself. “It’s only my Mexican hat,” she answered, touching the big sombrero, woven from the finest Panama grass, which she was wearing, “and the necklace is made of little gold Aztec idols that were found in a grave. They are very rare; a gentleman gave them to me, and afterwards I was horrified to find that he had paid an awful lot for them, £200, I believe. Do you understand about the Aztec gods? If not I will explain them all to you. This big one in the middle is Huitzilcoatl, the god of——” “No, no,” interrupted Godfrey, “I don’t and I don’t want to. I think them very ugly, and I always understood that ladies did not accept such expensive presents from gentlemen. Who was he?” “An American millionaire who didn’t wear armour,” she answered blandly. Then she changed the subject with the original remark that the swallows were flying higher than they had done on the previous evening, when they looked as though one could almost catch them with one’s hand. Godfrey reflected to himself that other things which had seemed quite close on the previous night were now like the swallows, far out of reach. Only he took comfort in the remembrance that swallows, however near, are evasive birds, not easy to seize unless you can find them sleeping. Next she began to tell him all about the Mexican gods, whether he wanted to listen or not, and he sat there in the glory of his new clothes and brilliantined hair, and gazed at her till she asked him to desist as she felt as though she were being mesmerised. This led him to his spiritualistic experiences of which he told her all the story, and by the time it was finished, behold! it was the luncheon hour.