They had tea in the little Doric shrine that overlooked the river, and she took him afterwards up to the wood that rose behind the house. Seated on a stile within it, against which he leaned, she told him the dream with which her eyes had been clouded the day before; told it with a hesitating persuasiveness which made dissent seem brutal; the dream of an ethereal alliance to which the man should bring a life, and the woman a use for it. Terence listened stupefied as the naïve unsteady voice made out its astounding offer. She had gathered somehow his desire for such a thing; the magnifying power of her vanity must have revealed it in all he did and said. And her abysmal lack of humour concealed its grotesque disparities. He, so it seemed, was to contribute his existence, and she, a smile. But if its seriousness was an absurdity, its absurdities were serious. Terence heard them with grave lips; heard in them, too, the diffident whispers of his pity swollen by her fancy to a blare of passion. It was serious enough as she sounded it, and sad enough too. Disillusionment, even the gentlest, seemed out of the question. How, to a woman who rides, triumphing in his devotion, through the barriers of her decorum, is a man to say, "I do not love you"? There was nothing less that could be said: nothing less, at least, that was not a lie: for less, to her ears, would have said nothing. Love alone was her warrant, her title; and she had thrust his love into her helm. There could be no other disillusionment but to take that from her, and to take it from her was to drag her to the dust. So Terence listened. The bronze stems of the hazel saplings shone before him like prison bars, but he nodded now and then as she spoke her faith, and gazed at the golden air that burned beyond them in the west. "I've never trusted any man enough," she ended, "to tell him all that I've told you; but you've made me believe in you; I don't know how. I suppose it really is because you're good and true. But are you quite, quite sure I mean so much to you, and that caring for me won't spoil your life?" "One never knows what may spoil one's life," said Terence gravely "and seldom what may spoil another's; but I think it's true that you may trust me, and I'll try to be to you the friend that you desire." He gave her his hand with boyish candour; and she held it, saying nothing, and not looking into his face. When she released it, presently, she slid from the stile; and, turning, faced the sunset which had gilded his hair. She was standing close to and partly in front of him, and so watched with him for a while, in silence, the setting splendours of the day. Then, with a little sigh, she leaned back against his shoulder. Thus they stood some moments longer without a word; Terence braced to bear her weight; braced mentally to meet whatever might be coming, conscious of the beat against him of her quickened breath.