"You sound very wise, little wife."
I nodded.
"I am wiser than you in a few things because I am a girl. Only women understand that which pertaineth to love. Men are very ignorant."
Dimbie smiled and smoked for a while in silence, while I thought of the happiness of Jane. We had had a long and intimate talk the previous evening. Dimbie had left us and gone to the fields in search of mushrooms at my special request. Mushrooms, I had felt, were the one thing needed to complete our evening in the garden, for we were to sup under the apple tree; and Dimbie on his return was to hang out our Chinese lanterns and dot fairy lights about the lawn.
"You only want to get rid of me," he had laughed. "I am convinced that there will not be a single mushroom in Surrey after the long, dry summer."
"If I want to get rid of you," I returned, "it will be for the very first and last time in my life; but I want to talk to Jane for a little while—just by ourselves."
He looked at me for a moment jealously and suspiciously.
"You don't mind just for once, dear."
"No, not very much, though I don't approve of secrets between women."
"Good-bye," I said, patting his cheek, "and bring plenty of mushrooms."