For a moment I wondered if I had fallen in with an amiable lunatic, but a closer inspection of his face showed me he was sane, uncommonly healthy, and, I judged, a clever man.
“A vast garden?” I said.
Without exactly replying to my remark, which was put half in the manner of a question, he said, partly to himself, “The slight fingers of April. Do you notice how delicate everything is?”
I had noticed. The air was full of suggestion, the flowers were very fairylike, the green of the trees very tender.
“Pied April,” said I.
Instead of answering me again he unstrapped the box that now lay beside him on the grass, opened it and took from it a beautiful Fritillaria.
“There’s one of the April Princesses, if you like,” he said. “There are not many about here, just an odd one or two; plenty near Oxford though.”
“You know Oxford?” said I.
“Guess again,” he said, smiling. “I’m no Oxford man, but I know the woods about there well. Please go on working; I’ll talk.”
I was about to look at my watch when he stopped me.