Paul looked at the clouds, moving serenely across the sky. He peered into the bare twigs of an oak. Some palm was in bloom, soft, yellow, feathery. "Truth, it's real mild spring, sir," said Tim. "Yes," said Paul. "I must say I'm glad summer is coming." "London, single," he said through the wicket at the booking office. It was real, that funny little window, and odd, how absurd the man looked, peering at him! A couple of turns up the platform, a good asphalted platform, with staring advertisements, rather jolly--about pens, Easter in Normandy, Nestle's Milk. And there was the train at last, swinging merrily round the corner, noisy, fussy, _real_. Third class, smoker, empty, that would do. Paul flung himself into a far corner. "Thank God," he said to himself, "thank _God_." A tall dark girl walked up the train. She looked in at Paul's window. He didn't see her, but she saw him, hesitated a moment, and decided, after all, she wouldn't travel to town with him. If perhaps, the next compartment was empty, she would prefer that. It was. She got in and shut the door. She had a newspaper and a novel to read, but she settled herself to stare out of the window instead. The country was so unimaginably lovely. CHAPTER VIII JUDGMENTS I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of Imagination. What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be Truth.... The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream;--he awoke and found it truth.--KEATS: _Letters_, November 22, 1817. (1) "Well," queried Tressor, "and what's the next move?" He was seated at his desk in his study, pen in hand, a pile of correspondence before him, and Paul, who had not been able to remain still for five minutes since he had heard the news, was leaning at the moment against the open window opposite. June had come in full-throated. The trees in the Fellows' Garden were thick with green, and the roses in the parterres flamed in the sun. Everything flamed in such a sunlight as had never been before, nor, in its own way, would be again. Miracles of that sort are not so uncommon in life as might be thought, but each one stands by itself. So to-day Paul was inwardly if only half-consciously marvelling at the world, seeing that it was transfigured before him.