"And I've a favourite walk I should like to show you in the Berkshires," he said.
"A seventeenth cousin reunion in walks, is that it?" She was smiling at her own suggestion with a confidential nod.
"Bully!"
"No, you should say ripping in England. Bully is an American vulgarism, Cousin Phil."
"Ripping!"
They broke out laughing at this, and the best feature of her laughter was the persistent radiance in her eyes. A passing labourer who noted the pair silhouetted against the skyline thought:
"Life is sweet to them—youth and good looks."
She returned to the subject of walks.
"Before we consider the one in the Berkshires," she said, "you're not returning to America without coming to France to see us, are you?"
He had carefully allotted every day of his time abroad, which did not include any visit to Mervaux. But when the allotment was made he had not met the seventeenth cousins.