Grisel had taken her brother’s place, with a little pile of needlework beside her on the grass, when Lawford again opened his eyes under the rosy shade of a parasol. He watched her for a while, without speaking.
‘How long have I been asleep?’ he said at last.
She started and looked up from her needle.
‘That depends on how long you have been awake,’ she said, smiling. ‘My brother tells me,’ she went on, beginning to stitch, ‘that you have made up your mind to leave us to-day. Perhaps we are only flattering ourselves it has been a rest. But if it has—is that, do you think, quite wise?’
He leant forward and hid his face in his hands. ‘It’s because—it’s because it’s the only “must” I can see.’
‘But even “musts”—well, we have to be sure even of “musts,” haven’t we? Are you?’ She glanced up and for an instant their eyes met, and the falling water seemed to be sounding out of a distance so remote it might be but the echo of a dream. She stooped once more over her work.
‘Supposing,’ he said very slowly, and almost as if speaking to himself, ‘supposing Sabathier—and you know he’s merely like a friend now one mustn’t be seen talking to—supposing he came back; what then?’
‘Oh, but Sabathier’s gone: he never really came. It was only a fancy—a mood. It was only you—another you.’
‘Who was that yesterday, then?’
She glanced at him swiftly and knew the question was but a venture.