He inspected the gracious room, its chintz hangings, four-poster bed, low wicker chair by the fireplace, fresh Cherokee roses on the mantel; a room of cheerfulness and open spaces. He stared into woods where a cool light lay on moss and fern. He did not need to remember Ruth's kisses. For each breath of hilltop air, each emerald of moss, each shining mahogany surface in the room, repeated to him that he had found the Grail, whose other name is love. Saturday, they loafed over breakfast, the sun licking the tree-tops in the ravine outside the windows; and they motored with the Kerrs to Lenox, returning through the darkness. Till midnight they talked on the terrace. They loafed again, the next morning, and let the fresh air dissolve the office grime which had been coating his spirit. They were so startlingly original as to be simple-hearted country lovers, in the afternoon, declining Kerr's offer of a car, and rambling off on bicycles. From a rise they saw water gleaming among the trees. The sullen green of pines set off the silvery green of barley, and an orchard climbed the next rise; the smoky shadow of another hill range promised long, cool forest roads. Crows were flying overhead, going where they would. The aviator and the girl who read psychology, modern lovers, stood hand in hand, as though the age of machinery were a myth; as though he were a piping minstrel and she a shepherdess. Before them was the open road and all around them the hum of bees. A close, listless heat held Monday afternoon, even on the hilltop. The clay tennis-court was baking; the worn bricks of the terrace reflected a furnace glow. The Kerrs had disappeared for a nap. Carl, lounging with Ruth on the swinging couch in the shade, thought of the slaves in New York offices and tenements. Then, because he would himself be back in an office next day, he let the glare of the valley soothe him with its wholesome heat. "Certainly would like a swim," he remarked. "Couldn't we bike down to Fisher's Pond, or maybe take the Ford?" "Let's. But there's no bath-house." "Put a bathing-suit under your dress. Sun 'll dry it in no time, after the swim." "As you command, my liege." And she ran in to change. They motored down to Fisher's Pond, which is a lake, and stopped in a natural woodland-opening like a dim-lighted greenroom. From it stretched the enameled lake, the farther side reflecting unbroken woods. The nearer water-edge was exquisite in its clearness. They saw perch fantastically floating over the pale sand bottom, among scattered reeds whose watery green stalks were like the thin columns of a dancing-hall for small fishes. The surface of the lake, satiny as the palm of a girl's hand, broke in the tiniest of ripples against white quartz pebbles on the hot shore. Cool, flashing, golden-sanded, the lake coaxed them out of their forest room. "A lot like the Minnesota lakes, only smaller," said Carl. "I'm going right in. About ready for a swim? Come on."