They came to the still waters of the hidden pool. It would not have been surprising if no eye but Harry’s had seen it since the trees had grown up around it. They had to make their way to it through thick bushes, which even in winter time could have concealed it. He had been careful in his visits not to go in and out of the thicket by the same way, and so leave a break. It was as if he had kept it secret for himself and her. When they had pushed their way through they were in a little grassy fern-fringed space open to the sky, though it was flanked by big trees. There were one or two more of these tiny lawns sloping to the edge of the water, but that on to which they came was the largest. An age-old oak stood sentinel in the middle of it and it was flanked on one side by a yew that must have been older still, so vast was its dark circumference and so thick its red ravelled trunk. Viola exclaimed with delight. The pool stretched in front of them, its surface unruffled, mirroring the blue sky and the green depths of the trees and the tall ferns that grew round it. There was no vegetation on it anywhere. Harry told her that it must be very deep, with a spring somewhere, or it would have been covered with weed. "It’s much nicer like this," she said, laughing at him. When he asked her why she laughed, she said: "You’re so proud of it." It did not seem much of a reason, but he liked her to laugh at him like that, looking at him and showing her pleasure in everything that he said that revealed a little of him. For one moment as they stood by the edge of the water he had a slight sense of anti-climax. He had brought her, not without difficulty, to the pool, as if in some way it was to be the end of things, and in some way also the beginning. But without some lead on her part there was nothing much to stay there for. It must be either the accepted scene, or nothing but a point of interest from which they would presently move on, with nothing more that he had yet thought of in front of them. The feeling disappeared as she turned towards the mossed roots of the oak, which made a seat for her. He threw himself among the fern at her feet with a sensation of desire accomplished. She had accepted it. The little lawn by the still water, hidden from all human eyes but theirs, was now consecrated by the simple fact of her taking her seat under the oak. She was queen of the pool and the deep summer woods.