The air was warm and sweet in the little lane, remote from the sea, which led them along their last walk. On either side the white path was a grassy margin thickly woven with pink convolvuli. Some of the reckless little flowers, so gay and evanescent, had climbed the trunks of an old yew tree, and were looking up pertly at their rough host. Helena walked along, watching the flowers, and making fancies out of them. “Who called them ‘fairies’ telephones’?” she said to herself. “They are tiny children in pinafores. How gay they are! They are children dawdling along the pavement of a morning. How fortunate they are! See how they take a wind-thrill! See how wide they are set to the sunshine! And when they are tired, they will curl daintily to sleep, and some fairies in the dark will gather them away. They won’t be here in the morning, shrivelled and dowdy … If only we could curl up and be gone, after our day….” She looked at Siegmund. He was walking moodily beside her. “It is good when life holds no anti-climax,” she said. “Ay!” he answered. Of course, he could not understand her meaning. She strayed into the thick grass, a sturdy white figure that walked with bent head, abstract, but happy. “What is she thinking?” he asked himself. “She is sufficient to herself—she doesn’t want me. She has her own private way of communing with things, and is friends with them.” “The dew has been very heavy,” she said, turning, and looking up at him from under her brows, like a smiling witch. “I see it has,” he answered. Then to himself he said: “She can’t translate herself into language. She is incommunicable; she can’t render herself to the intelligence. So she is alone and a law unto herself: she only wants me to explore me, like a rock-pool, and to bathe in me. After a while, when I am gone, she will see I was not indispensable….” The lane led up to the eastern down. As they were emerging, they saw on the left hand an extraordinarily spick and span red bungalow. The low roof of dusky red sloped down towards the coolest green lawn, that was edged and ornamented with scarlet, and yellow, and white flowers brilliant with dew. A stout man in an alpaca jacket and panama hat was seated on the bare lawn, his back to the sun, reading a newspaper. He tried in vain to avoid the glare of the sun on his reading. At last he closed the paper and looked angrily at the house—not at anything in particular. He irritably read a few more lines, then jerked up his head in sudden decision, glared at the open door of the house, and called: “Amy! Amy!” No answer was forthcoming. He flung down the paper and strode off indoors, his mien one of wrathful resolution. His voice was heard calling curtly from the dining-room. There was a jingle of crockery as he bumped the table leg in sitting down. “He is in a bad temper,” laughed Siegmund. “Breakfast is late,” said Helena with contempt. “Look!” said Siegmund.