A voice outside in the garden broke in upon his musing--his wife’s voice, followed by a man’s laugh. He got up, and glanced under the sun-blind which shielded the window. Cecily was picking the flowers for the lunch-table, and Mayne, seated on a bench before a rustic table, was tying flies for fishing. For a moment Robert experienced a curious, uneasy sensation. It was almost like shame, and he dismissed it with a decided recognition of its idiocy. Mayne had settled down very well. It was a splendid thing for Cecily to have some one fresh to talk to. It was pitiful to think how selfish most men were to their wives--how jealous.... It was only ten minutes past twelve. The morning seemed endless, and he was unable to do a stroke of work. It was dreadful to have days like that. Somewhere in the distance he heard Diana calling. “Coming,” answered Cecily in response, and presently he saw her moving towards the house. Mayne continued to occupy himself with his fishing-tackle, as, during his restless pacing to and fro in his study, Kingslake could see. Presently he opened the French window and stepped out onto the grass. Mayne looked up from his work. The bench on which he was sitting was flanked by a wall of yew, which made part of a formal enclosure framed on three sides by yew hedges, and open, on the fourth, to the rest of the garden only by a narrow archway cut out of the living green. It was a charming, sheltered little spot, where Cecily’s white lilies flourished; a sort of dedication, she said, to the larger garden outside. “Holloa!” observed Mayne, as Kingslake came nearer. “Knocked off for the day? Is the muse coy?” “Yes,” returned Robert, rather irritably. “I’m not getting on. Change of place, I suppose. Anything like that affects me.” He took out his cigarette-case. “Delicate machinery you writing people must have. Something’s always going wrong with the works, isn’t it?” “Oh, more or less,” Robert returned, passing his hand through his hair with a gesture habitual to him. “You’ve been working in town lately, haven’t you?” “Yes, getting up stuff for this book. But that’s finished. Now there’s only the writing.” “Good Lord!” ejaculated Mayne, with a groan. “Only the writing! The mere thought of it makes me gasp.” Robert smiled. “_I_ can’t tie flies,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of Mayne’s litter of silk and tinsel. “No, but you land your fish with the best of us.... That last book of yours caught on, didn’t it?” “Oh, it brought me in something, I’m glad to say.” Mayne leaned back against the yew hedge, stretching out his long legs contentedly. He tilted up his face towards the serene blue sky, then glanced round him, his look taking in the flowers, the dancing butterflies above them, the delicate shadows on the grass. “What do you want money for in Arcadia?” he asked. “To get out of it,” returned Robert, with a sort of impatient bitterness.