As she approached, she became conscious of the hind quarters of a man clothed in that dark mixture that used to be popularly known as "pepper-and-salt," standing up out of one of the cucumber-frames, and executing movements as if he were practising diving in a dry bath. Suddenly the legs subsided and sank down. Next they rose again, and kicked about, the rest of the man still remaining hidden in the frame, and then at last there was a rapid retrograde motion, and Christie Bayle emerged, hot, dishevelled, but triumphant for a moment, then scarlet with confusion and annoyance as he hastily caught up his hat, clapped it on, but hurriedly took it off and bowed. "Miss Luttrell!" he exclaimed. "Mr Bayle!" she cried, forbearing to smile as she saw his confusion. "I heard the noise and wondered what it could be." "I--I met your father," he said, hastily adjusting the light; "he asked me to open the frames. A tiresome slug--" "It was very kind of you," she said, holding out her hand and pressing his in her frank, warm grasp, and full of eagerness to set him at his ease. "Papa will be so pleased that you have caught one of his enemies." "Thank you," he said uneasily; "it is very kind of you."--"I'm the most unlucky wretch under the sun, always making myself ridiculous before her," he added to himself. "Kind of me? No, of you, to come and take all that trouble."--"Poor fellow!" she thought, "he fancies that I am going to laugh at him."--"I've been so busy, Mr Bayle: I've copied out the whole of that duet. When are you coming in to try it over?" "Do you wish me to try it with you?" he said rather coldly. "Why, of course. There are no end of pretty little passages solo for the flute. We must have a good long practice together before we play in public." "You're very kind and patient with me," he said, as he gazed at the sweet calm face by his side. "Nonsense," she cried. "I'm cutting a few flowers for Miss Heathery; she is the most grateful recipient of a present of this kind that I know." They were walking back towards the house as she spoke, and from time to time Millicent stopped to snip off some flower, or to ask her companion to reach one that grew on high. In a few minutes she had set him quite at his ease and they were talking quietly about their life, their neighbours, about his endeavours to improve the place; and yet all the time there seemed to him to be an undercurrent in his life, flowing beneath that surface talk. The garden was seen through a medium that tinted everything with joy; the air he breathed was perfumed and intoxicating; the few bird-notes that came from time to time sounded more sweetly than he had ever heard them before; and, hardly able to realise it himself, life--existence, seemed one sweetly calm, and yet paradoxically troubled delight.