“I—I haven’t a very good memory for being unhappy,” Daphne confessed remorsefully, a guilty rose staining her to her brow at the memory of that exultant chant.
He threw back his head with a sudden shout of laughter.
“These are glad tidings! I’d rather find a pagan than a Puritan at Green Gardens any day. Let’s both have a poor memory. Do you mind if I smoke?”
“No,” she replied, “but do you mind if I ask you what you are doing here?”
“Not a bit.” He lit the stubby brown pipe, curving his hand dexterously to shelter it from the little breeze. He had the most beautiful hands that she had ever seen, slim and brown and fine; they looked as though they would be miraculously strong—and miraculously gentle. “I came to see whether there was ‘honey still for tea,’ Mistress Dryad!”
“Honey—for tea?” she echoed wonderingly. “Was that why you were looking at the hive?”
He puffed meditatively. “Well—partly. It’s a quotation from a poem. Ever read Rupert Brooke?”
“Oh, yes, yes.” Her voice tripped in its eagerness. “I know one by heart—
“‘If I should die think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. That shall be——’”
He cut in on the magical little voice roughly.