Their eyes met in a long glance, and Charles drew a long breath.
"I discovered it ten minutes ago," he said. "Spring, just Spring: month of April."
For another long moment they stood there, face to face, spring round them and below and above them, and in them. Then Joyce pointed to the grass.
"Oh, the fullest wood!" she said. "I don't know why Grannie sent for me. I must be getting back. I am late already: is there a taxi, do you think?"
Charles' ill-luck prevailed: there was, and he put her into it, and stood there looking after its retreat. As it turned the corner not fifty yards away out of the Park most distinctly did he see Joyce lean forward and look out.... And though not one atom of his ill-defined troubles or suspicions was relieved, he walked on air all the way home instead of wading through some foul resistant stickiness of mud.... The great star, the only star that really mattered, had shone on him again, not averting its light.
But though he walked on air, the mud was still there.
"A visitor to tea, Charles. I wish you had been home earlier. Three guesses."
"Mother lies," remarked Reggie. "You do—you enjoyed being asked those things. That would never have happened if Charles had been at home."
This was rather like the uncomfortable though not uncommon phenomenon of feeling that the scene now being enacted had taken place before. Charles experienced this vividly at the moment.