“Put up a notice, ‘Trowels not admitted.’ I am writing to Mr. Woolridge. Oh, and there are those American people coming to-morrow, who want to be shown roses, and flowering shrubs. Will you take them round? I fancy I shall be busy.” Canterton returned to the rosery, and, picking up a stray chair in one of the main paths, joined Eve Carfax, who had a little green Japanese tea-tray on her lap. She was pouring out tea from a tiny brown teapot, her wrist making a white arch, her lashes sweeping her cheek. “They have brought your tea all right?” “Yes.” “What about cakes?” She bent down and picked up a plate from the path. “Someone must fancy me a hungry schoolgirl.” “It looks rather like it. How is the painting going?” “I am rather pleased with it.” “Good. On show soon?” “I have only to put in a few touches.” He swung his chair round, and sat down as though it were the most natural thing in the world for him to come and talk to her. Her curious resemblance to Lynette may have tricked him into a mood that was partly that of the playmate, partly that of the father. Lynette, the child, had set him an impetuous example. “Miss Eve feels the fairies in the wood, daddy. She feels them there, just like me.” That was it. Eve spoke and understood the same language as he and the child. “I overtook Mrs. Brocklebank.” “And rescued Guinevere?” “Yes, and the good dragon pretended to be very innocent. I did not drag your name in, though I was reproved for not labelling things properly, and so inviting innocent old ladies to purloin flowers.” “But you got the rose back?” “Yes, and she managed to break the stalk off short in pulling it out of her belt. I wonder if you can tell me why the average woman is built on such mean lines?” She gave him a sudden questioning glance which said, “Do you realise that you are going beneath the surface—that the real you in you is calling to the real me in me?” He was looking at her intently, and there was something in his eyes that stirred a tremor of compassion in her. “What I mean is, that the average woman seems a cad when she is compared to the average man. I mean, the women of the upper middle classes. I suppose it is because they don’t know what work is, and because they have always led selfish and protected lives. They haven’t the bigness of men—the love of fair-play.” Her eyes brightened to his. “I know what you mean. If I described a girls’ school to you——” “I should have the feminine world in miniature.” “Yes. The snobbery, the cult of convention, the little sneaking jealousies, all the middle class nastiness. I hated school.” He was silent for some moments, his eyes looking into the distance. Then he began to speak in his quiet and deliberate way, like a man gazing at some landscape and trying to describe all that he saw.