Lawrence slapped a bending tulip.
"Yes, the world lies far away."
"And you are afraid to lose sight of it," she turned on him swiftly. And she added, before he could find defence, "You have come to redeem your words, to tell me that you love me desperately; that you want to make an engagement; and some day marry me and go over there to live?"
She laughed.
"Well?"
"Caspar would do that."
"And Severance has something to offer," Lawrence remarked, bluntly.
"Half a million."
She began to walk slowly across the little grass-plot over to the Lido side. Here the oily swell was gurgling in the stone embankment.
She was like a plant flowering in the garden—a plant, part lily, part hyacinth.