Lizzie had put on the cake. Phyllis saw at once that there were only six custards. She could tell, by the way Lizzie planked them down, there were no more in the kitchen. If they all took one there wouldn’t be any for Lizzie herself, and that would mean bad temper. She refused the custard. She wanted a peach, but felt that the effort of peeling it was too much. Soft fuzzy skin and wet fingers. Then George, with that occasional insight that always surprised her, passed her one peeled and sliced. “Yes,” he said, “we ought to have a bathe, unless there’s a storm. Relieve the pressure on the bathroom.” “Then we’ll all be nice and clean for the Picnic,” exclaimed the children. “Miss Clyde is coming,” George continued. “She’s an artist too, perhaps Mr. Martin knows her.” “Bring the jug of iced tea in the garden, let’s finish it out there,” said Phyllis. “It’s stifling here.--Children, you go and get your naps.” The little table was under the pine trees, the other side of the croquet oval. The grove smelt warm and slippery. Now there are the long hours of the afternoon to be lived through, somehow. George sprawled himself on the brown needles, the smoke of his pipe drifted past her in a blue whiff. Mr. Martin put a chair for her. “I love these pine trees,” she said. “They’re always whispering.” “It isn’t polite to whisper.” She smiled at him. He does say the quaintest things. “Nature never is polite. On an afternoon like this the whole world seems to yawn in your face.” “These trees smell like cough drops.” This was George. An artist’s mind is always on the beautiful, Phyllis thought. She pulled her skirt down a little, and tried to decide what was the most beautiful thing visible, so she could call his attention to it. She wished she hadn’t said that about yawning, she felt one coming on. The hot lunch had made her frightfully drowsy. Across the bay thunderheads were massing and rolling up, deep golden purple. “I wish I could paint,” she said. “See those wonderful----” But she began the sentence too late; the yawn overtook her in the middle of it. “Wonderful what?” asked George, looking up. She was struggling with the desire to gape; she trembled with the violence of her effort. George stared. “Are you ill?” “Wonderful clouds,” she finished savagely. George watched her, adding one more tally to his private conviction that women are mostly mad. “If you poured heavy cream into a glass of grape juice,” he said, “it would look just like that. Coiling round and clotting.” Sickening idea, Phyllis thought. “I know exactly what’s going to happen, just about the time I have to drive over----”