"When I was here first," says the brother, "the thrushes were still singing. They are off duty by now, the very last of them." He stops listening. "That's a yellow-hammer. And that's a linnet. You can't tell one from the other."
"I know. I'm shockingly ignorant.... What, dear? What is it you want?" Her brother has been exploring the window-frame with a restless hand, as though in search of some latch or blind-cord. He cannot find what he wants.
"I want to come to a clearness about the position of this blessed window," he says. "Which direction is the bed in now? Well—describe it this way, suppose! Say I'm looking north now, with my shoulder against the window. Where's the bed? South-west—south-east—due south?"
"South-west by south. Perhaps that's not nautical, but you know what I mean."
"All right! Now, look here! As I stand here—looking out slantwise—where's the sunset? I mean, where would it be?—where does it mean to be?"
"You would be looking straight at it. Of course, you are not really looking north.... There—now you are!" She had taken her hands from the shoulder they were folded on and turned his head to the right. "But, I say, Adrian dear!..." She hesitates.
"What, for instance?"
"Don't try to humbug too much. Don't try to do it, darling boy. You'll only make a hash of it."
"All right, goosey-woosey! I'll fry my own fish. Don't you be uneasy!" And then they talk of other things: the journey home to-morrow, and how it shall be as good as lying in bed to Adrian, in the big carriage with an infinity of cushions; the new friends they have made here at the Towers, with something of wonderment that this chance has been so long postponed; the kindness they have had from them, and the ill-requital Adrian made for it yesterday by breaking that beautiful blue china tea-cup—any trifle that comes foremost—anything but the great grief that underlies the whole.
For Irene would have her brother at his best, that the visit to him of her new-made friend Gwen may go off well, and steer clear of the ambushes that beset it. Better that that visit should never come off, than that her friend should be left to share their fears for the future. Each is hiding from the other a weakening confidence in the renewal of suspended eyesight, weaker at the outset than either had been prepared to admit to the other.