They would walk to the end of the long avenue and back again. In a moment she would cease humming and make a remark. She tasted a new sense of ease, walking slowly along with this strange man without “making conversation.” He was taking her silence for granted. All her experience so far had been of companions whose uneasiness pressed unendurably for speech, and her talking had been done with an irritated sense of the injustice of aspersions on “women’s tongues,” while no man could endure a woman’s silence ... even Ted, except when dancing; no woman could, except Minna, in Germany. Max must be foreign, of course, German--of _course_. She could, if she liked, talk of the stars to him. He would neither make jokes nor talk science and want her to admire him, until all the magic was gone. Her mood expanded. He had come just at the right moment. She would keep him with her until she had to face Ted. He was like a big ship towing the little barque of her life to its harbour. His vague humming rose to a little song. It was German. It was the Lorelei. For a moment she forgot everything but pride in her ability to take her share in both music and words. “You understand German!” he cried. They had reached the end of the avenue and the starlit roadway opened ahead, lined with meadows. “Ach, wie schön,” breathed Max. “Wie schön.” Miriam was startled by the gay sound of her own voice. It sounded as if she were alone, speaking to herself. She looked up at the spangled sky. The freshening air streamed towards them from the meadows. “We _must_ go back,” she said easily, turning in again under the trees. The limes seemed heavily scented after their breath of the open. They strolled dreamily along keeping step with each other. They would make it a long quiet way to the gate. Miriam felt strangely invisible. It was as if in a moment a voice would come from the clustering lime trees or from the cluster of stars in the imagined sky. “Wie süss,” murmured Max, “ist treue Liebe.” “How dear,” she translated mentally, “is true love.” Yes, that was it, that was true, the German phrase. Ted was dear, dear. But so far away. Coming and going, far away. “Is it?” she said with a vague, sweet intonation, to hear more. “Wie süss, wie süss,” he repeated firmly, flinging his arm across her shoulders. The wildly shimmering leafage rustled and seemed to sing. She walked on horrified, cradled, her elbow resting in her companion’s hand as in a cup. She laughed, and her laughter mingled with the subdued lilting of the voice close at her side. Ted was waiting somewhere in the night for her. Ted. Ted. Not this stranger. But why was he not bold like this? Primly and gently she disengaged herself. She and Ted would walk along through the darkness and it would shout to them. Day-time colours seemed to be shining through the night.... She turned abruptly to her companion. “Aren’t the lime trees jolly?” she said conversationally. “You will dance again with me?”