But for my part I lean to the first theory. And if you had ever sat in the moonlight on the grassy hill behind the house, had seen the dark green of the fairy rings among the brighter green of the field, had heard the rippling of the stream at the foot of the hill, had seen the pale gold of the massed primroses, had smelled their sweet fragrant scent, had seen the misty shimmer of countless bluebells, then, I fancy, you also would have been of my way of thinking.
Elizabeth sat at one of the round tables by an open casement window.
It looked on to a grass terrace bordered by brilliant galadias. Beyond the galadias was a tiny stream, rippling, amber-coloured, over rounded stones. Beyond the stream was a grassy hill, sloping upwards to a beech-wood. Beyond that again was the blue sky.
“It really is extraordinarily pleasant,” said Elizabeth.
And then she turned to her coffee pot. The coffee poured into a blue and white cup, she was stirring it thoughtfully, when the door opened.
A man paused for the merest fraction of a second on the threshold. It evidently came as a bit of a surprise to him to find the room already occupied.
Elizabeth looked at the man. The man looked at Elizabeth.
She saw a big man in loose tweeds, shabby tweeds, which had seen much service. She saw a square-faced man, with a mat of darkish red hair.
He saw a glossy-haired, brown-haired woman, a woman with a palely bronzed skin, beneath which there was an underglow of red, a woman with red lips finely moulded, with a square chin, with a delicately chiselled nose, with steady grey eyes in which there was an under-note of something akin to laughter. She wore a cream-coloured cotton dress. A pink la France rose was tucked into the front of her gown.