He showed it off proudly. "Work of art," he said. "I made one just like it when I was here the summer I was twelve--I remembered it this morning when I woke up, and I came out to get this one." She admired it critically, particularly the initials of the dark bark left on, but suggested an improvement about the knob. "By Jove! you're right," he admitted, and set to work with his knife. They were like two youngsters out of school. All morning they idled out-of-doors, exploring the little lanes that led off into the buff-colored hills, returning at noon, ravenous, to lunch in the dining-room of the inn, parting afterward in the corridor, and going to their own rooms to rest and read. At four Ayling tapped at her door to say that there was in the sitting-room "an absolutely enormous tea." That night, before a beautiful fire in the sitting-room, they caught each other yawning at half past nine, and at ten they said good-night. It had been so perfect that the next day found them following the same routine. And the next day, and the next. Bessie Lonsdale had not felt for years so much peace and so much strength. In their morning walks together her strength showed greater than his. The bracing air exhilarated her, and she felt she could have walked forever in the lovely rolling hills. Once she had walked on and on, faster and faster, not noticing how she had quickened her pace, her head up, facing the light wind blowing in from the sea. And, turning to ask a question of Ayling at her side, his white face stopped her instantly. "Oh, I _am_ sorry! Forgive me," she said. He smiled, embarrassed, and waited a moment for breath before he said, "It's just the wind; it's pretty stiff." And she had said no more, because it embarrassed him, but she suited her pace to his after that, never forgiving herself for her thoughtlessness. And she chose, instead of the hill roads, the level, winding lanes. For five perfect spring days they spent their mornings out-of-doors in the sun, lunched, parted until tea, met at dinner again, and said good night at a preposterously early hour. And they could not have said whether they amused or interested or merely comforted each other. Perhaps they did all three. At any rate, it was an idyll of its kind, and of more genuine beauty than many less platonic idylls have been.