“Why do you insist so much on right? I waive it if it exists. That’s why I came here.” “Oh,” she cried, with a smile in acknowledgment of his unveiling of her half-pretence, “I want it to be you!” He laughed back at her, so that her colour came.... He took John away into the country roads, where the cherry-trees were in blossom and the sun lay flat on the long, low, irregular branches, reminding them of illustrations in Japanese fairy-books. There, as they walked, the news was given, the two letters read. “You’ve done all this,” John said, and remained speechless. “I can’t help wondering what it is exactly that I have done or helped to do. What’s it going to lead to?” “What do you mean?” “I mean that this--the breaking free--is a beginning, not an end.” “I know.... But there’s time enough to think of what’s to come. I won’t think of it now.... Hartington, couldn’t you come too?” “No; we shape different courses now.” “But we three shall see each other often--in London. I’ve never seen you in London. And at Oxford, you must stay with me there.” Hartington looked wistfully at him. “Oh yes,” he said, “we shall see each other often.” They found on their return that the others had finished tea. Only Hugh remained by the empty cups. He sprang up to meet them. “I am glad, you civilian! Margaret told me.” “She knows?” “I told her,” Hartington said. Then, “Have I stolen your news?” “There is no one left to tell,” John answered, laughing. “I want to tell thousands of people.” Later, he asked: “Where is Margaret?” “I don’t know. She disappeared after tea.” They sat smoking. Everything was pleasant to John now: the click of a cigarette-case being shut, the tapping of the cigarette, the long silences in which none of them had need of speech. The afternoon had begun to fail. The sun slanted yellow across the window-panes and fell in rippling beams of light and shadow upon the pale matting. Outside, the lawn and distant trees had taken on those soft golden tones which, at the approach of summer’s dusk, flow across English fields, investing them with kindly magic. Then the church tower seems more than ever still; the churchyard silent, but not terrible. The bird rustles in the hedgerow; you imagine his bright eyes. The cricket stumps yellow against the green; the shadows flicker on the pitch; the bat sounds clearer, sweeter; the ball runs smoothly, and with peculiar ease; the players and the umpires in their white coats grow nebulous and vague. “‘And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost,’” John said. “Back in England already?” “This summer in England!” He went bareheaded into the cool air, across the lawn, springy under his feet, down the path among the trees where the white sand lay heavy, on to the shore. There was Margaret, near the waves’ edge. He approached her, and, because she was so still, touched the billowing muslin she wore. “You know?”