Paul told him, gaily. "Humph! Disgustin'. Better tell her there's no vicar's wife job going beggin'." "You old ass," said Paul. But he told her, all the same. After tea, the elders sat on in the dappled shade, and Paul dug out a punt and put the girl into it. They floated gently into "Paradise," and he pulled in under a spreading tree. "By Jove, it's hot," he said. "I think we'll lay up, if you don't mind." "Of course. Come and sit down." She moved her skirt and shifted a cushion. She had no doubt whatever where he was to sit. He threw himself down beside her. "May I smoke?" he asked. Claxted seemed impossibly far. "Of course. I love it, you know. I don't see why you shouldn't." He tapped his cigarette on his case. "No," he said vaguely. It was so trifling an incident, but it was one among many. Madeline at Cambridge was, somehow, a new Madeline. He was aware how much he liked the change, and he resolved to take Strether's advice. "Do you know what I'm going to do next year?" he asked. "No. Ridley?" He told her. She lay quite still. Then she heaved a little sigh. She couldn't help it. For one thing, Paul was rather delicious in his collarless shirt and blazer, the pillar of his throat good to see. For another, there was utter charm about them: the soft-flowing river, the whisper of the water under the punt's stern, the tall trees that met high overhead and interlaced in their delicate beauty, the bright sunlight on the green fields and swifter flow yonder, without the brooky tunnel. And besides---- "I prayed about it, Paul," she said simply. She meant it. In her own way, she meant it absolutely. Honestly, too, she was too glad to think for a moment, as she might have done, that perhaps this was the very best opening of them all. Yet, after all, it was not. "_You_ prayed," queried Paul, frankly astonished. "Yes. I thought you liked that horrid Father Vassall too much. I thought you'd become a Roman Catholic as sure as fate. Mother said---- But never mind. You won't now anyway. Oh, Paul, will you write a real play?" "Look here," he said grimly, "I don't suppose I'll ever be a parson." "Of course not. You can do much bett---- No," (she was very honest) "that's not right. I admire clergymen ever so much. But you know, Paul, almost anyone can be a clergyman." "Can they? Yes, I suppose you're right. It looks rather like it anyway." "Of course they can. Ethel Cator's brother is going to be a clergyman; you know him: he sings rather nicely. But just fancy writing a play! Paul, I don't care what they say at Claxted: you must give me a box the first night." Paul suddenly thought he would. She looked up at him dreamily. "You might even be an actor yourself," she said. "Do you remember those charades that Christmas at the Gators'?" Then a trifle hastily: "Talking of them reminds me."