"That's a pleasure that may be ours to-day," he remarked. And she had to restrain her curiosity.
"It doesn't hurt, at any rate," he went on, "to practise now and then standing outside. For God knows that generally the happiness we happen to be craning our necks to reach is a forbidden garden."
Lilly gazed at him in alarm. What did he mean by that? Then their eyes met in shy understanding. The disquieting expectancy to which she was afraid to give a name crept over her suddenly like an ague.
"Let us go on," she said, springing to her feet, and she walked on rapidly without looking round to see if he followed.
The woods grew clearer. They came to a little swampy coppice where silver birches shot up their slender trunks gaily from mossy pedestals.
The hot midday air stirred in tiny wavelets. Somewhere not far off church-bells were ringing, but no farmstead was in sight, and suddenly they found themselves at diverging paths without knowing which direction to take.
"A decision is called for," he said, and strained his ears for a moment in the quarter whence the sound of church-bells came.
"I wish with all my heart," he added, "that there was a bell ringing thus to guide me on my road in life." And he turned to the right.
Then he told her that he was standing figuratively at cross-roads. He had been offered a post which, considering how young he was, ought not to be scoffed at; but before accepting he was bound to consider whether it would interfere with the progress of his life's work.
"It's a very good post, I suppose?" Lilly asked proudly. If he had been appointed minister of the fine arts or Emperor of China she would not have thought it in the least extraordinary. But he seemed disinclined to say more.