She realised that everything she said was lost on him; that he even seized whatever opportunity offered to make merry at her expense. "Please get up and let me by," she said. "Why should I cast what is best in me before one who is unworthy?" He made no movement to leave his seat. "Look, comrade," he said, pointing to the dark, mirror-like surface of the water. "A water spider is gliding about there all the time with its legs up and its head down. If you were to ask it why, it would say it doesn't know how to glide differently. That's its nature. What's to be done?" "A man can restrain himself," she cried, flaring up and casting indignant glances at him. "A man can look up to heights, to an ideal. He can listen to the advice of a friend who means well by him--that's what he can do." "And what does his friend advise?" he asked flatteringly, while swinging himself nearer. But this time she did not answer. She covered her face with her hands and cried, cried so that her body shook with sobs. "For God's sake, sit still," he exclaimed, stretching his arms about her in a wide circle, for she was in danger of losing her balance on the slim, swaying trunk of the mountain-ash. "Do sit still, Lilly, else you'll fall into the water." She shuddered. She heard nothing of what he said except that sweet, secret, criminal "Lilly," for which she had been longing the whole week. Then he promised her everything she wanted of him. He wouldn't run after any more servant girls, he wouldn't spend nights boozing with the inspector and the bookkeeper, he wouldn't--oh, what wouldn't he do, if only she stopped crying. "Your word of honour?" she said, raising her wet, reddened eyes. "My word of honour," he replied without an instant's hesitation. She smiled at him, happy and grateful. "You won't regret it," she said. "I'll be close at hand, I'll be your friend, I will do whatever I can." "And whatever the two High Mightinesses permit," he added. This time the epithet "High Mightinesses" did not annoy her. She shrugged her shoulders and said: "Oh, they--yes, of course." Then they both laughed till they came near falling into the ditch after all. CHAPTER XX Delightful times followed. A game of hide-and-seek with herself, a long-drawn draught from an unfailing fount of expectancy, anticipation, delicious aftertaste and joyous recollections. Each day brought new pleasures and untold wealth. Sometimes when Lilly threw open the shutters in the morning and the fresh red September air flowed in over her she felt as if God had spread a mantle of sunny gold over the heavens to wrap both of them in, so snug and close that the whole world disappeared, leaving no one but themselves behind, pressed against each other in laughter and drunk with all that light.