Her mobile features were capable of wonderful shades of expression. He suddenly forgot his wife and his position as a minor poet as he looked at her. It is possible that his classical features may themselves have undergone a certain transfiguration. For one brief moment--and it was always to linger in his memory--destiny lifted him out of his vain little self to a nobler level of simplicity. The copy of "Tenderly ever" fluttered from his hand. Considerations vanished. Only one thing seemed of importance. "I love you," he said abruptly. An expression of fear came into her eyes. The grip of her hands upon one another tightened convulsively. She became very pale. Then she moved her lips as if to speak, bringing her face slightly nearer to his. There was nothing in the world at that moment for either of them but one another. They were both trembling exceedingly. In a whisper she said, "You love me?" Aubrey Vair stood quivering and speechless, looking into her eyes. He had never seen such a light as he saw there before. He was in a wild tumult of emotion. He was dreadfully scared at what he had done. He could not say another word. He nodded. "And this has come to me?" she said presently, in the same awe-stricken whisper, and then, "Oh, my love, my love!" And thereupon Aubrey Vair had her clasped to himself, her cheek upon his shoulder and his lips to hers. Thus it was that Aubrey Vair came by the cardinal memory of his life. To this day it recurs in his works. A little boy clambering in the hedge some way down the lane saw this group with surprise, and then with scorn and contempt. Recking nothing of his destiny, he turned away, feeling that he at least could never come to the unspeakable unmanliness of hugging girls. Unhappily for Reigate scandal, his shame for his sex was altogether too deep for words. * * * * * An hour after, Aubrey Vair returned home in a hushed mood. There were muffins after his own heart for his tea--Mrs. Aubrey Vair had had hers. And there were chrysanthemums, chiefly white ones,--flowers he loved,--set out in the china bowl he was wont to praise. And his wife came behind him to kiss him as he sat eating. "De lill Jummuns," she remarked, kissing him under the ear. Then it came into the mind of Aubrey Vair with startling clearness, while his ear was being kissed, and with his mouth full of muffin, that life is a singularly complex thing. * * * * * The summer passed at last into the harvest-time, and the leaves began falling. It was evening, the warm sunset light still touched the Downs, but up the valley a blue haze was creeping. One or two lamps in Reigate were already alight. About half-way up the slanting road that scales the Downs, there is a wooden seat where one may obtain a fine view of the red villas scattered below, and of the succession of blue hills beyond. Here the girl with the shadowy face was sitting.