I don’t know what I thought of the idea as a solution of the troubles of the Outliers. I thought of a great many practical objections afterward, but just then I knew what I thought of Herman for proposing it. They were our Outliers—or I might have said _my_ Outliers, for I had imagined them, believed in them and discovered them. It was only Herman’s interest in me which had brought him within their borders. It was a unique and beautiful experience, and it was ours. We had said that and had felicitated ourselves so many times on its being an experience we were having together. If we forgot it we must have even our forgetfulness in common as we had so many things—and here was Herman willing to throw it open to the world as an experiment in sociology. If Herman felt that way about it, how was I to claim that exquisite excluding community of interest in which the adventure had begun! “I daresay,” I answered quickly, for I had thought all this while he talked to me, “that it is as good as most ideas of yours, but it doesn’t interest me.” And I walked away and left him staring into the water. VIII IN WHICH HERMAN’S IDEA RECEIVES A CHECK To the dry fog succeeded showers and intervals of super clearness. Vast blunt-headed clouds blundered under a high, receding heaven. Brown croisers of the fern uncurled from the odorous earth, some subtle instinct responded to the incessant stir of sap. The Outliers left off debating to run together flock-wise in the recrudescence of the year. The wet wood was full of whispering, all hours of the night feet went by bearing laughter, not loud but chuckling and daring. Nevertheless, the clearing of the weather did not scatter them. Some there were whose affairs had called them at the end of the Meet. A few had gone in displeasure at the turn of the Council. Mancha’s supporters, and they were chiefly the young men, remained in the neighborhood of Leaping Water and Deep Fern, to which we had moved when the rain began. Fretted argument would go on where two or three of the men were met, disrupting suddenly. There was a sense of expectancy abroad. Men watched the Ward for more than her beauty as she went with the keepers, in a green gown like the sheath of a bud, her face a flower. Ravenutzi got from Herman what silver coins he had, and smithied them into a brooch for her; it was rumored that you would find the twin of that pattern in the King’s Desire. Women grew curious, questioned me how the House-Folk lived and loved. They laughed and looked sidewise, but listened.