She departed to don thick boots. A ‘tramp’ with Stuart, she knew from previous experience, meant that whatever stood in their direct line of march, must simply and without question be ignored. One did not go backwards or roundabout or half-way. One went through and on. If a mountain blocked the path, one went over it; if a rushing torrent, then into it; if a board with “trespassers will be prosecuted”—well, of course, that was as good as an invitation; one had to consider if it were not mere self-indulgence to follow the call. Time ceased to exist; climatic conditions were just accepted; ultimate destination remained a negligible quantity until one established an ultimate destination by arriving there; and safety of limb was not for an instant weighed in the balance against the possibility of surmounting an eight-foot barrier interlaced with barbed wire, and an enraged bull waiting on the further side. These little country strolls with Stuart gave Peter an insight into his religion of ignoring life itself in favour of life’s lightest moment.
Therefore she donned thick boots and an unquestioning spirit, wondering the while whether the first might not be regarded as rather a contradiction to the second.
Meanwhile, left to entertain Stuart in the garden, Bertram borrowed his ten pounds.
“Pax?” said Peter tentatively, as they swung up the road towards the Weald.
“Certainly pax, or I shouldn’t have come.”
“You gave in first.”
“I did,” with quiet triumph; “you’d never have given in, Peter; you’re a bit of a coward that way.”
“I’m a coward because I’d never have given in?” cried the girl, who in the thirteen days’ interim had almost forgotten how to tread in looking-glass land.
“Of course. I suddenly had enough of the fray, wanted to see you, chucked over the entire edifice of silence, and came. You’d have stuck to your guns, not dared abandon them. Coward!”
She dashed back: “So you simply abstain from indulgence as long as abstinence itself is the indulgence. I always thought your asceticism was a distorted form of vice.”