Eleanor blushed and bit her lip. "Yes, it's a stupid phrase," she said quickly. "I didn't mean it the least in that way. Only we are so—what shall I say?—so self-sufficient. We've everything we want, nearly; and—oh! never mind. Is this as much of the garden as you've seen?" She led him across the little quadrangular enclosure as she continued: "I should like to show you my favourite place, if you haven't been there yet. It's just a little lower down, on the terrace, overlooking the stream and the lake. And I want you to tell me about Canada. You're a full-fledged doctor, aren't you? Aunt Hannah said you wrote from Peckham. Were you practising there?"
As they made their way to the terrace she had indicated, Arthur told her something of his work in Peckham and of his reasons for wishing to leave it. He expected sympathy from her, but he found none.
"I dare say it was dirty," was her comment—his insistence on that aspect had demanded a reply—"but it was work, real work. You were doing some good in the world."
They had reached the terrace now, and from where they stood they overlooked a croquet lawn—flush and smooth as a green carpet—bounded on its further side by the row of wych elms and the stream. Beyond, they could see the falling slope of the garden down to the shrubberies that hid the wall; but from this point there was no vista of the rich Sussex landscape without.
Arthur sighed. "I had had six years of it," he said, "and I had a sort of feeling that I wanted to—to recover my youth for a bit. I wanted to try something of this sort for a change."
"Of this sort?" she repeated on a note of perplexity.
"I suppose it's impossible for you to realise what it means to me," he replied. "You've had it always. You think just because this is what you're used to and perhaps tired of, that it's very splendid and exhilarating to work in the slums. If you had had my experience, you'd understand that to me this garden seems a sort of Paradise. You can't appreciate the attractions of this sort of life unless you come in, as I do—from the outside."
She was obviously troubled by that outburst. "And how long do you think you could stand being shut in here?" she asked, after a pause.
"At this moment, it seems to me that I could stand quite a lot of it," Arthur said.