He and Pauline were leaning over the rail of the barge, and Guy felt a sudden impulse to snatch at the bank rich in that moment with yellow loosestrife, and by his action arrest for ever the progress of the barge, so that for ever they would stay like the lovers on a Grecian urn.
"And really," Guy went on, as already the banks of yellow loosestrife were become banks of long-purples, "there is no reason why for us in a way this river should not flow on for ever. Dear, everything had seemed so perishable before I found you. Pauline, you don't think I ought to surrender my intention, do you? I mean, you don't think I ought to go away from Plashers Mead?"
Guy went on to tell her about the decision he had taken on the day the visit to Ladingford was arranged.
"But it would have been dreadful to miss this time," Pauline declared.
"Oh, I felt it would be impossible," he agreed. "But even if our marriage is postponed for another year, you do think I ought to stick it out here, don't you? And really, you know, few lovers can have such wonderful hours as the hours we do have."
Easily she reassured him with her confidence in the rightness of his decision; easily she assuaged the ache of any lingering doubt with the proclamation of that inevitable triumph in the end.
"But we must be engaged openly," said Guy. "You know I shall be twenty-three next month. Do you think we can be engaged properly in August?"
"Mother promised in Spring," said Pauline. "Why don't you talk to her about it? Why don't you talk to her about it now? She loves you to talk to her."
He looked round to where Mrs. Grey was sitting in a deck-chair; evidently by the rhythmic motion of her fingers she was restating to herself a tune which had formerly pleased her, as the barge glided on past a scene that changed perceptibly only in details of flowers and trees, while the great sky and the green hollow land and the blue distances rested immutable. Guy came and sat beside her.
"I've never enjoyed a fortnight so much in my life," he said.