"I _could_ stay a few days." "How many?" "How many do you want me? Two whole days, Strelsa?" She laughed at him, then looked at him a trifle shyly, but laughed again as she answered: "I want you to stay always, of course. Don't pretend that you don't know it, because you are perfectly aware that I never tire of you. But if you can stay only two days don't let us waste any time----" "We're not wasting it here together, are we?" "Don't you want to walk? I haven't a horse yet, except for agricultural purposes. I'll rinse my hands and take off this apron--" She stood unpinning and untying it, her gray eyes never leaving him in their unabashed delight in him. Then she disappeared for a few minutes only to reappear wearing a pair of stout little shoes and carrying a walking-stick which she said she used in rough country. And first they visited her garden where all the old-fashioned autumn flowers were in riotous bloom--scarlet sage, rockets, thickets of gladiolus, heavy borders of asters, marigolds, and coreopsis; and here she gave a few verbal directions to the yokel who gaped toothlessly in reply. After that, side by side, they swung off together across the hill, she, lithe and slender, setting the springy pace and twirling her walking-stick, he, less accustomed to the open and more so to the smooth hot streets of the city, slackening pace first. She chided and derided him and bantered him scornfully, then with sudden sweet concern halted, reproaching herself for setting too hot a pace for a city-worn and work-worn man. But the cool shadows of the woods were near, and she made him rest on the little footbridge--the same bridge where he had encountered Ledwith for the first time in years. He recognised the spot. After they had seated themselves and Strelsa, resting on the back of the bridge seat, was contentedly dabbling in the stream with her cane, Quarren said, slowly: "Shall I tell you why I did not disturb you last night, Strelsa?" "You can't excuse it----" "You shall be judge and jury. It's rather a long story, though----" "I am listening." "Then, it has to do with Ledwith. He's not very well but he's better than he was. You see he wanted to take a course of treatment to regain his health, and there seemed to be nobody else, so--I offered to see him through." "That's like you, Rix," she said, looking at him. "Oh, it wasn't anything--I had nothing to do----" "That's like you, too. Did you pull him through?" "He pulled himself through.... It was strenuous for two or three days--and hot as the devil in that sanitarium." ... He laughed. "We both were wrecks when we came out two weeks later--oh, a bit groggy, that's really all.... And he had no place to go--and seemed to be inclined to keep hold of my sleeve--so I telephoned Molly. And she said to bring him up. That was nice of her, wasn't it?" "Everybody is wonderful except you," she said.