"I never noticed before how the sky is always changing and moving and alive. I would like to sit like this until it all grows dark and the stars come out and the glow of the lights of the town goes up into it? And, Linda, it has all become very different, hasn't it?" She said: "I knew it would come." Then they laughed together, and René clapped his hand on her knee and told her she was a wonderful darling. Linda observed then that they had begun to attract attention, and she rose and walked quickly away. He followed her slowly, thrilling to the present, seeing nothing in the world but her brave little figure in muslin with the tip-tilted hat. Her hair was golden in the sun, and her neck was white and the lines of her shoulders were lovely. René touched her lightly as he came up with her. "We're going to be married," he said. "Yes." "Isn't it fun?" Her answer struck him as amusing and he laughed. She asked: "Is Elsie better in her own house?" "Oh, she's a good sort, really, and George--that's my brother--George couldn't have done better." "I have an idea from the way you speak that I shall rather like George." "I didn't say anything to show I like him." "No, darling." (René's heart leaped at the word.) "No. I think you dislike him. You hate your father. He is impossible, but such a dear." René, sensitive in his ecstasy, for the tulips and the sky and she had brought him to nothing less, felt a malice in her that scratched at his heart. But, loving her, worshiping the new radiant intimacy that had sprung up between them, he loved even her malice. They walked home slowly, laughing over the mischances, the absurdity of the tea-party, and when they reached her house she made him come in, played to him for an hour, and sent him home drunk with love. He called it love, for he suspected not that it could have any other name. She had promised to marry him as soon as he had his degree and a position, and he was to write to her mother and make a formal proposal, since Mrs. Brock was old-fashioned enough and German enough to desire that much of formal ceremony. IX PATERFAMILIAS The foolish man thereat woxe wondrous blith As if the word so spoken were half donne.