Godfrey and Muriel walked below the heavy elm trees. This part of the garden was deserted, but from far off, through the enshrouding greenery, came vagrant echoes of tunes played by the band. So thick was the cool, deep gloom of the great trees, that only here and there a golden point of sunlight fell on the shadowed path, and lay quivering as the dark leaves stirred.
They did not speak. A rabbit scuttled across the drive, bobbing suddenly below the tangled bramble sprays. Above in the elms a dove cooed sleepily, with all the warmth of drowsy summer in its call. The path was smooth, with small rounded pebbles sunk into the moss, and on each side the deep, dark grasses tangled round tall spears of willow herb, of sombre undergrowth, of hedges foaming cream with old man's beard.
At a turn of the avenue they came to a space where the trees to their right were cut away.
"I want you to see this," said Godfrey.
Beyond the low hedge, beyond two fields of the wide grassland where Connie had once ridden, stretched the long terraces of the Weare Grange. The house itself crowned them, grey and beautiful, looking down upon the coloured throng of people in the garden. Blue, white and pink, like shifting, wind-blown petals, the dresses of Marshington girls moved on the green. Clearer along the breeze came fitful gusts of music. Hidden by half a mile of winding avenue, the two looked back together on it now.
"It's singularly beautiful," said Muriel quietly.
"You t—think so? I'm glad. You don't think it's all rot?"
"What is rot?"
"Liking the old place and all that."
She shook her head. "Of course I don't. Who could? I think that it is a beautiful place. You're a lucky man in many ways, Godfrey. You have power and privilege and a tremendous influence." She looked as though she would have said more, then stopped and just stood, gazing towards the house.