"Coquette," smiled Lilian, "only it's not been conscious until this moment. Somehow those two reminded me. There's always this dread of capture with us women, and nowadays it's more complicated and extended. Yes, thought does give us longer life. Everything has a larger prelude. I've been afraid of your big house, which will be such a nuisance to look after. I've been afraid of a too brief honeymoon, and then of you becoming a cheerful companion at meals and a regular winder up of clocks." She laughed hysterically. "And then you might do woodcarving in the winter evenings." "Not on your life," roared the Doctor. "At the worst I shall bore you with my many-times-told jests." "And at the best I shall learn to put up with them," said Lilian. "That's where my sense of humour will come in." The Doctor suddenly took her in his arms. "But you care?" he whispered. "You consent to make me young again?" She stirred curiously in his arms, her mind newly alert. "Oh, I never thought of that. How stupid we clever people are! I never thought that being a lover would make you young." "Ignoramus," laughed the Doctor. "A woman's first child is always her husband." "You and your epigrams!" "You and your thoughts!" She joined in his mirth. A little later it was before she had the last word. "Creation," she whispered, "I don't believe it's happened yet. That seven days and seven nights is still going on. Man has yet to be created, and woman must help to create him." IV "I must be getting back," said the Clockwork man to himself, as he trundled slowly over the hump of the meadow and approached the stile. "I shall only make a muddle of things here." There was still a touch of complaint in his voice, as though he felt sorry now to leave a world so full of pitfalls and curious adventures. Something brisker about his appearance seemed to suggest that an improvement had taken place in his working arrangements. You might have thought him rather an odd figure, stiff-necked, and jerky in his gait; but there were no lapses into his early bad manner. "I have a feeling," he continued, placing a finger to his nose, "that if I put on my top gear now I should be off like a shot." But he did not hurry. He twisted his head gradually round as though to embrace as much as possible in his last survey of a shapely, if limited world. "Such a jolly little place," he mused. "You could have such fun--and be yourself. I wonder why it reminds me so of something--before the days of the clock, before we _knew_." He sighed, and suddenly stopped in order to contemplate the two figures seated together on the stile. Rose was asleep in Arthur's arms. "Don't bother," said the Clockwork man, as Arthur stirred slightly, "I'm not going that way. I shall go back the way I came." "Oh," said Arthur, smitten with embarrassment, "then I shan't see you again?" "Not for a few thousand years," replied the Clockwork man, with a slight twisting of his lip. "Perhaps never."