“I think Susan looks more knocked out of time than you do,” remarked Bunbury, after one of those comfortable pauses that mark intimacy, “and they really had not so near a shave as we had. They weren’t going anything like our pace when they saw that the cutting had fallen in.” Another pause. “By the way, did you--did you understand that I thought we should have to jump, that time that I--that I put my arm round you?” “Oh, perfectly,” said Slaney distantly, and blushed with fervour. “Mr. Glasgow did not seem to mind missing his train, after all,” she went on, speeding into the topic she most wished to avoid, as is frequently the fate of those who talk for the sake of changing the conversation. “I believe that was all a mistake. Glasgow hadn’t the slightest idea of going; he only wanted to see one of the directors who was travelling up by the mail,” said Bunbury elaborately. “Susan waited for us at the station till she was frozen,” continued Slaney, taking her share in the apology. “She would have come on our engine only that it would have spoiled her box cloth coat.” “Do you know where she is now?” asked Bunbury, after another silence. “She said something about going to look for daffodils. I saw her going up the backway towards the woods some time ago.” “Are you too tired to walk up to meet her? You may choose between that and playing the Impromptu.” They went up the hill at the back of the house by a seldom-used avenue, where cart-wheels had made deep brown ruts in the grass, and the bordering oaks hung their branches low and unpruned; pale winter pastures spread on either side, and the cattle were already moving downwards towards their night’s lodging. Yet the hint of coming spring was in the lengthened afternoon; stiff-necked daffodil buds were beginning to bend their heads and show the hoarded gold through the jealous green, and thrushes were twining a net of song in the shrubberies below. It is in the days of February that the Irish air begins again to breathe suggestion--no longer mere food for the lungs, it invades the heart, and bewilders the brain with griefs and hopes. Even to the dimming of the eye that smell of the fields entered into Slaney; with a new and strong understanding of herself she could have wept for the guileless egoist who had been Slaney Morris when last the February winds blew sweet. “Have you written that letter to say that you are not going home to-morrow?” said Bunbury, as he held open the gate that admitted them into the wood.