“Is that all you could give to Eden?”
“Alas, alas!” Rather to his surprise, Anne was grave. “But when one has lived always in Vanity Fair? Do you not feel with me? Something else will be provided for us poor things, something more in accord with our heritage of ages?”
She gave him a look in which he read what she did not say, and they walked on silently, making their way at last to the brink of the river. The clear water rushed noisily past them.
“A chatterer,” Wareham declared. “Pleasant chatter, don’t you think? If you are sure we have time we might sit down here a little while, and perhaps grow cool.”
“Plenty of time,” he said, consulting his watch. “If we are back by a quarter to two, we shall do very well, for all your things will have gone on board.”
Anne was already perched on a stone.
“I throw responsibility on you. I have come here to enjoy myself, not to fidget.”
“What shall we do to secure your object?”
“Oh,” she cried impatiently, “don’t talk about it! If it isn’t spontaneous it is failure.”
“Then I mayn’t even ask whether you prefer silence or—”