The expedition seemed scarcely worth such complications of perplexed thought. It was a proof of the strength of her inclination that she persevered in face of this sense of impropriety, and the formless doubts that assailed her continually in defiance of the logic with which she sought to banish them. She was interested in this man with the strong body and handsome face and the air of reckless indolence. She wanted to meet him and talk uninterruptedly without the necessity to break away in the middle of the conversation and hurry back to a meal or something. The freemasonry that exists between persons of like temperament and instinctive sympathy assured her that this interest was mutual. She crossed the road and walked on to the beach. Against the wall, lounging in the shadow of it and obviously waiting for her, was Matheson. When she saw him she realised how ashamed, how bitterly ashamed, she would have felt had she arrived first. He must have dined early, or hurried through his meal, to have got there so soon. He turned his head quickly, caught sight of her, and advanced to meet her. "It's good of you," he said. "But I felt sure you must relent." He scrutinised her for a moment, and found himself enjoying the effects of the last rays of the sunset warming her hair and the clear olive of her skin. "The sun is kissing you good-bye. It's a good time of the day, isn't it?" he said. "Yes," she answered a little shyly--"the best time of all." "Wait," he counselled. "I am going to take you beyond Sea Point. You needn't trudge it all the way. We can board the tram--as far as it goes. Round the point one gets a view of the Twelve Apostles--if you care about mountains,--but I'm sure you do. One faces the wide sweep of the bay and the immensity of the open sea. We'll watch the moon rise out there--then you will know which is the best time of all I want you to admit that my hour is the best hour." He laughed with a ring of light-hearted enjoyment in the sound of the mirth. "Humour me," he pleaded. "That's one of my conceits." But she, smiling also, shook her head. "The best hour of the twenty-four--the Perfect Hour," she insisted, "belongs to no specified period. Haven't you discovered that?" "What is the perfect hour?" he asked. "The hour we most enjoy." An earnest look had come into her eyes, the quiet tones of her voice echoed this earnestness, accentuated it; he felt his own mood responding to the seriousness of hers. He liked her treatment of the subject. Never in all his life, he believed, and wondered whether she had been more fortunate in this respect, had he experienced the perfect hour. It was possible, he decided, to go through life without experiencing it. "Your idea appeals pleasantly to the imagination," he said; "but it deals with superlatives. My good hour is not to be despised; it's within the grasp of all." "You think the other isn't?" she asked.