Her grey eyes were watching the swinging catkins, her hand, lifting the primroses, hid a smile. Again he had the benefit of her profile, the knot of her dark, thick hair and the shadowy line of her eyelashes, but she made no comment on his remark and after a moment of sombre staring he uttered the one word, “Well?” “Yes?” “Well, I’ve told you.” “Oh, I think you ought to go.” “Then you don’t love me?” From under her raised eyebrows she looked at him steadily. “No, I don’t love you,” she said slowly. There was no need to consider her answer: she was sure of it. She was fond of him, but she could not romantically love some one who looked and behaved like a spoilt boy. She glanced from his handsome, frowning face in which the mouth was opening for protest to a scene perfectly set for a love affair. There was not so much as a sheep in sight: there was only the horse who, careless of these human beings, still ate eagerly, chopping the good grass with his teeth, and the spaniel who panted self-consciously and with a great affectation of exhaustion. The place was beautiful and the sunlight had some quality of enchantment. Faint, delicious smells were offered on the wind and withdrawn in caprice; the trees were all tipped with green and interlaced with blue air and blue sky; she wished she could say she loved him, and she repeated her denial half regretfully. “Rose,” he pleaded, “I’ve known you all my life!” “Perhaps that’s why. Perhaps I know you too well.” “You don’t. You don’t know how—how I love you. And I should be different with you. I should be happy. I’ve never been happy yet.” “You can’t,” she said slowly, “get happiness through a person if you can’t get it through yourself.” “Yes—if you are the person.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.” He reproached her. “You’ve never thought about it.” “Well, isn’t that the same thing? And,” she added, “you’re so far away.” “I can get through the hedge,” he said practically. She smiled in the way that always puzzled, irritated and allured him. His words set him still farther off; he did not even understand her speech. “Is it better now?” he asked, close to her.