“Yes, I am going to paint them this afternoon. Whose idea was it massing that golden alyssum and blue lithospermum on the rocks behind them? It’s a touch of genius.” Lavender’s nose curved when he smiled. “That was one of my flashes. It looks good, doesn’t it?” “One of the things that make you catch your breath.” He swung along with his hawk’s profile in the air. “I fancy we’re going to do some big things in the future. If I were a rich man and wanted the finest garden in England, I’d give Mr. Canterton a free hand. And, excuse me saying it, miss, but I’m glad you’ve joined us.” He gave her a friendly glare from a dark and apprizing eye. “I’m keen, keen as blazes, and I wouldn’t work with people who didn’t care! Mr. Canterton showed me those pictures of yours. I should like to have them to look at in the winter, when everything’s lying brown and dead. If you want to know anything, Miss Carfax, at any time, I’m at your service.” His manners were of the quaintest, but she understood him, that he was above jealousy, and that he looked on her as a fellow enthusiast. “I shall bother you, Mr. Lavender, pretty often, I expect. I want to know everything that can be known.” “That’s the cry! But isn’t it a rum thing, Miss Carfax, how nine people out of ten knock along as though there were nothing fit to make them jump out of their skins with curiosity. Why I was always like a terrier after a rat. ‘What’s this?’ ‘What’s that?’ That’s my leitmotiv. But most people don’t ask Nature any questions. No wonder she despises them, the dullards, just as though they hadn’t an eye to see that she’s a good-looking woman!” He erected her easel for her in the rosery, tilted his Panama hat, and marched off. Eve sought out Guinevere and sat herself down before the prospective saint, only to find that she was in no mood for painting. Her glance flitted from rose to rose, and the music of their names ran like a poem through her head. Moreover, the June air was full of their perfume, a heavy, somnolent perfume that lures one into dreaming. Suddenly she found that he was standing in one of the black arches cut in the yew hedge. She knew that the blood went to her face, and she remembered telling herself that she would have to overcome these too obvious reactions. He came and stood beside her, looking down at her with steady and eloquent eyes. “You have found out Guinevere?” “Yes. We are old friends now.” “I am not going to market this rose. She is to be held sacred to Fernhill. How are you getting on at the cottage?” Her eyes glimmered to his. “Thank you for everything.” “And Billy pleases you?” “He has a sense of humour.” “And Mrs. Baxter?” “Has what they call a motherly way with her.” His eyes wandered round the rosery with a grave, musing look. “I want to talk.” “Talk to me here. I want to know how——” “How she accepted it?” “Yes.” “She laughed. Thought it ridiculous. And I had been ready for a possible tragedy!”