The garden had learned that dance now. It was simple once you got the hang of it. All you had to do, if you were a tree, was to jump up and down, while, if you were a lawn, you just went round and round. So the trees jumped up and down and the lawn went round and round, and John stood still in the middle of it all, admiring it. "Oh, Johnnie," said Pat. "What on earth shall I do?" "Go on just like you are now." "But about Hugo, I mean." Hugo? Hugo? John concentrated his mind. Yes, he recalled now, there had been some little difficulty about Hugo. What was it? Ah, yes. "Pat," he said, "I love you. Do you love me?" "Yes." "Then what on earth," demanded John, "did you go and do a silly thing like getting engaged to Hugo for?" He spoke a little severely, for in some mysterious fashion all the awe with which this girl had inspired him for so many years had left him. His inferiority complex had gone completely. And it was due, he gathered, purely and solely to the fact that he was holding her in his arms and kissing her. At any moment during the last half-dozen years this childishly simple remedy had been at his disposal and he had not availed himself of it. He was astonished at his remissness, and his feeling of gratitude, toward that Ancestor of his in the baggy bearskin who had pointed out the way, became warmer than ever. "But I thought you didn't care a bit for me," wailed Pat. John stared. "Who, me?" "Yes." "Didn't care for you?" "Yes." "You thought I didn't care for you?" "Well, you had promised to take me to Wenlock Edge and you never turned up and I found you had gone out in your car with that Molloy girl. Naturally I thought...." "You shouldn't have." "Well, I did. And so when Hugo's letter came it seemed such a wonderful chance of showing you that I didn't care. And now what am I to do? What can I say to Hugo?" It was a nuisance for John to have to detach his mind from what really mattered in life to trivialities like this absurd business of Hugo, but he supposed the thing, if only to ease Pat's mind, would have to be given a little attention. "Hugo thinks he's engaged to you?" "Yes." "Well, he isn't." "No." "Then that," said John, seeing the thing absolutely clearly, "is all we've got to tell him." "You talk as if it were so simple!" "So it is. What's hard about it?" "I wish you had it to do instead of me!" "But of course I'll do it," said John. It astonished him that she should have contemplated any other course. Naturally, when the great strong man becomes engaged to the timid, fluttering little girl he takes over all her worries and handles in his efficient, masculine way any problem that may be vexing her. "Would you really, Johnnie?" "Certainly." "I don't feel I can look him in the face." "You won't miss much. Where is he?" "He went off in the direction of the village." "Carmody Arms," diagnosed John. "I'll go and tell him at once." And he strode down the garden with strong, masterful steps.