Conversation that first evening was all between Clowes and Mendel, while Morrison sat silent, curled up on the floor by the fire, gazing into it, sometimes listening, sometimes dreaming, sometimes shaking with a happy dread as she thought how near she was to her heart's desire. It had been for so long her central thought that she would take him down to the country and get him away from the terrible pressure of London upon his spirit, so that she could see released in him, perhaps slowly, perhaps painfully, what she loved--the vivid, clear vitality. And now she had won. She had him sitting there within reach, with good, faithful Clowes, and already she could feel the new glow of health in him. Almost she could detect a new tone in his lovely rich voice. . . . Sometimes, as she gazed into the fire, her eyes were clouded with tears. It seemed so incredible that she could have won against the innumerable enemies, invisible and intangible, against whom action had been impossible, even if she had known what to do. She had been happy enough with Clowes in this place, but now she could not help a wickedly ungrateful desire that Clowes should be spirited away. * * * * * Clowes absented herself in the day-time, but Mendel had very little energy, and for the most part of the day sat by the fire brooding over the bubble of his London life, which he knew he must break with a touch. Often Morrison sat with him, and neither spoke a word for hours together. On the fifth day, when the sun shone so that it was wicked to be indoors, Morrison suggested lunch in the woods. Clowes excused herself, but Mendel agreed to go with her, and the farmer's wife packed them a basket of food. They set out gaily, over the common, up the rolling field green with winter corn, down through the jolly farm-yard full of gobbling turkeys and strutting guinea-fowl, under the wild cherry-trees to the woods, where in a clearing they made a fire, and Morrison, declaring that she was a gipsy, sang the only song she could remember, "God Save the King," and told his fortune by his hand. He was to meet a dark woman who would make a great change in his life, and money would come his way, but he must beware of the Knave of Clubs. Entering into her mood, he insisted that they must act a Wild West cinema drama, and he rescued her from Indians and a Dago ravisher, and in the end claimed her hand from a grateful father; and so hilarious did they become that the cinema drama turned into an opera, and he was Caruso to her Melba. In the end they laughed until they were exhausted, and decided that it was time for lunch. * * * * *