Her small fingers resting for a second or so in his, she answered, “Very well. And you?” in the tone of one meeting a casual acquaintance after a few hours’ separation; but then she could not repress a nervous little laugh, for which she could instantly have beaten herself with rods. “How do you come to be out so early?” he said, conversationally, his heart strumming against his side. “And how did you enter the park?” she countered in unconscious retaliation. “By the village gate. I came from the station in a most egregious _cariole_ drawn by a magnificent Anglo-Norman, of course, and driven by a blue-bloused, cotton-bonneted native, who charged me one hundred _sols-Parisis_ for the job, and whom I dismissed with something additional at the said gate.” “But,” she argued, white now as the white rose at her waist--“but why didn’t you telegraph for a carriage--announce your arrival?” “I thought of it, but decided that it was more in my line to sneak in like a thief in the morning.... That is misquoted, I believe.” She was searching his dear face despairingly for information as to his true state of feeling. He was talking against time, she knew well enough, but what was there lurking behind that calm, almost apathetic expression? Had he heard about Laurence--about the wreck? Did he know already that the beautiful woman who had borne his name none too well was silently awaiting his return in a triple envelope of palisander and silver and lead, to be carried far away where all past Princesses Palitzin had been laid in state for many generations? And Piotr, wasn’t he going even to mention Piotr--Tatiana, or Jean? Her sweet countenance, like the valley below, was caught in a maze of swiftly lightening and darkening impressions, sunshine and shadow, doubt and fear, and again hope conquering them all; but he remained immovable to the verge of stupidity, aware, though, and fully, that she was suffering and--God!--that he too suffered, suffered unbearably--as, had she been quicker, she would have noticed by the almost imperceptible quiver of his under lip. “Shall we move on?” he asked at length, shaking his shoulders ever so slightly. She nodded the big, soft wings of her hat, her face hidden now, and stepped into the path five inches ahead of him. The belligerent beetles, scared by the voices, had prudently subdued their foaming wrath and postponed their jealous combat.