He helped her in the gardens often now. Richard, making some secret experiments, did not want him at the laboratory. Sometimes he and she worked together at changing color schemes or improving mass effects or vistas. Again each worked alone, perhaps at some surprise for the other. It was after a morning of hard labor in opposite ends of the grounds that she said when they met at the house: "Richard’s not coming up, so Nanny has to take him his dinner. And Lizzie’s away and Mazie not well. I’ll wait on you." "Let’s have a picnic," suggested he, "out under that big elm." And with Winchie helping they carried everything to the rustic table and proceeded to have one of those happy-go-lucky meals that make the blue devils put their tails between their legs and fly away on their forks. Winchie, let eat what he pleased, forgot his dislike of Gallatin—at least so far that he only frowned occasionally as Gallatin and Courtney talked the most hopeless nonsense with the keenest pleasure. When Basil’s face was animated it was never homely; when he smiled it was always handsome. For the first time since he came he lost all constraint, and the sparkle of girlhood came back to her. They stayed out there nearly three hours, and it seemed no time at all. Nanny, sour and scowling at the impropriety of such conduct in a married woman—one married into the ancient and rigid house of Vaughan—took away the dishes and linen. But the hint so plain in her dour looks went unnoted. It was a shower that broke up the party, sent them scurrying to the house, he carrying furious and protesting Winchie. She punished Winchie for his rudeness by sending him up to his bedroom to sit alone and think down his temper. "You oughtn’t to have done that," said Basil, when the boy, defiant even in obedience, disappeared. "It’s the only way to make him remember. And I can’t whip him. I’m too selfish, even if I didn’t know it was equally degrading to him." "He can’t help not liking me," persisted Basil. "We’re not to blame for our likes and dislikes." "No. But we are to blame for giving way to them." She was arranging freshly cut flowers in vases and jars in the sitting room. "Yes, for giving way to them," said Basil thoughtfully, after a long time. "To what?" asked Courtney, who had forgotten. "Our feelings." "Oh, I remember." "You’re right about that." Basil was speaking with an effort. "For example, if a man were to—to fall in love with a married woman, he’d be a—miserable cur if he told her. Those last few words came explosively. "Gracious!" Courtney beamed mischievously at him from behind a gorgeous spread of half blown roses. "You are fierce! Well, that’s settled. If he heard you, he’d never dare tell her."