She understood him then. The painful colour stole into her cheeks, faintly burning, and she closed her eyes for a moment to endure it, sitting silent, motionless, her little sun-tanned hands tightly clasped on her knees. Then, unclosing her eyes she looked at him, delicate lips tightening. "I thought our relations were to remain on a higher plane," she said steadily. "Our relations are to remain what you desire them to be, dear." "I desire them to be what they are--_always_." "Then that is my wish also," he said with a smile so genuine and gay that, a little confused by his acquiescence, her own response was slow. But presently her smile dawned, a little tremulous and uncertain, and her gray eyes remained wistful though the lips curled deliciously. "I would do anything in the world for you, Rix, except--that," she said in a low voice. "I know you would, you dear girl." "Don't you really believe it?" "Of course I do!" "But--I _can't_ do that--_ever_. It would--would spoil you for me.... What in the world would I do if you were spoiled for me, Rix? I haven't anybody else.... What would I do here--all alone? I couldn't stay--I wouldn't know what to do--where to go in the world.... It would be lonely--lonely----" She bent her head, and remained so, gray eyes fixed on her clasped fingers. For a long while she sat bowed over, thinking; once or twice she lifted her eyes to look at him, but her gaze always became confused and remote; and he did not offer to break the silence. At last she looked up with a movement of decision, her face clearing. "You understand, don't you, Rix?" she said, rising. He nodded, rising also; and they descended the steps together and walked slowly away toward Witch-Hollow. From the hill-top they noticed one of Sprowl's farm-waggons slowly entering the drive, followed on foot by several men and a little girl. Her blond hair and apron fluttered in the breeze. She was too far away for them to see that she was weeping. "I wonder what they've got in that waggon?" said Quarren, curiously. Strelsa's gaze became indifferent, then passed on and rested on the blue range of hills beyond. "Isn't it wonderful about Chrysos," she said. "The quaint little thing," he said almost tenderly. "She told Molly what happened--how she sat down under a fence to tie wild strawberries for Sir Charles, and how, all at once, she realised what his going out of her life meant to her--and how the tears choked her to silence until she suddenly found herself in his arms.... Can you see it as it happened, Strelsa?--as pretty a pastoral as ever the older poets--" He broke off abruptly, and she looked up, but he was still smiling as though the scene of another man's happiness, so lightly evoked, were a visualisation of his own. And again her gray eyes grew wistful as though shyly pleading for his indulgence and silently asking his pardon for all that she could never be to him or to any man.