She said nothing to that; only her mouth, without her knowing it, kept for him its little dreamy smile.
"I believe," said Ranny, "you've never reelly got over Stanley's goin' into knickers."
"I love his knickers," she protested.
"Yes, but you'd love him better if he was that size, wouldn't you?"
"I couldn't love him better than I do, Ranny. You know I couldn't. And I wouldn't like him to be any different to what he is."
She was very serious, very earnest, almost as if she thought he'd really meant it.
Silent in the grip of an emotion too thick and close for utterance, they wandered back again to the enchanted garden where the band had played for them. The garden was silent, too. The bandstand was empty, black, unearthly as if haunted by some thin ghost of passionate sound; and empty, row after row of seats in the great parterre, except for a few couples who sat leaning to each other, hand in hand, finding a happy solitude in that twilight desolation.
Like worshipers strayed into some church, they joined this enraptured, oblivious company of devotees, choosing seats as far as possible from any other pair.
"Hadn't we better be going?"