Two days later she met Pierre by the banks of the Serpentine on a May noon that held the city in a web of silver. The tall houses of Bayswater, reflected in that shimmering expanse of water, appeared like the battlements of an enchanted palace above the trees that masked their prosaic beginnings. The white peacocks haunting the slopes toward Hyde Park made one feel that life was a dream and that the children and nurses, the meditative loiterers, even the old maids with their pet dogs, would all presently be turned into birds to fly above this cloud-cuckoo-town of London. No sooner were they seated on two of those green chairs, which in their emptiness speak as eloquently as musical instruments of latent emotions, than Pierre took Mary's hand and said: "Mademoiselle, I have given up Marechal et Cie. Presently I shall find something better to do. But so long as I was their _employé_ I could not tell you that I loved you. At this moment I am poor, but I am free. Mary, I hope you will love me until I can win you in marriage?" She let her hand remain in his. Citizen and citizeness of cloud-cuckoo-town, they floated far above ordinary life. "I only know that I love you, Pierre," she whispered. He bent over and touched her fingers with his lips. Then for a long time they sat in silence. "You had better come and speak to my grandmother this afternoon." He nodded pensively. "She might raise some difficulties," Mary went on, trying to realize that there was another existence outside the serene and silver world in which the beating of her own heart sounded so loud. "Come about four," she said, rising. "I will explain how all this has happened." He kissed once more her hand and stood watching her as she floated across the level grass toward home. It was only when Mary heard the door of the house in King's Gate close behind her and the gong chime for lunch that she began to wonder if it was all going to be as easy as it had seemed by the banks of the pale blue Serpentine. However, Pierre was coming this afternoon, and Grandmamma must be warned. Lunch was surely unusually disturbed to-day. The maids were always in and out with new dishes. Perhaps it would be best to wait until they went up to the drawing-room for coffee. Would that mean Grandmamma's missing her nap? If it did, it could not be helped. At least she must be told that there was such a person. "Did I ever tell you about a boy called Pierre Menard?" Mary asked when she had poured out the coffee. It took a long time to describe that scene ten years ago when Pierre followed the drum to glory, so long that Grandmamma was nodding before Mary had finished. But when Mary added that curiously enough she had met him again the other day, met him once or twice in fact, and that he had asked her if he could call this afternoon, Grandmamma sat upright and looked more wide-awake than Mary had ever seen her yet. "Is the young man going to call on you or me?" "On you, Grandmamma."