iv

Edgar was punctual in his arrival at Patricia's door. As he left the car and lowered its hood, a church clock near by struck the hour. He advanced to the front door, and knocked. And as he did so Patricia appeared at the door, dressed for going out. She had feverishly been ready for ten minutes, and had watched for him. She greeted him, but their eyes did not meet, and he could see that she was still pale, possibly from want of sleep; possibly even, it might have been, from inability to eat her breakfast.

"I brought a coat of Claudia's," he said, with a good deal of carelessness which covered a temporary lack of assurance. "You'd better wear it, because it may be very cold driving. Would you like to leave your own coat? No, better bring it."

Patricia was mystified as to his reasoning; but she allowed herself to be packed into the fur coat, and then sat quite still while Edgar re-started the car and drove down the road and round a corner into the King's Road and so through Putney to Kingston and out on to the Guildford road. She had tried to equal his casualness with her own; but she was feeling very shaky, and was glad of the silence. Patricia did not know where they were going; but the car's smooth motion was delightful, and the morning was crisply cold; and as they drew free of traffic and tramcars the opening country began to surround her with beauties which sprang freshly upon every hand and awakened self-forgetful rapture in her heart. Although the year was dying, there were trees which still clung to their leaves, and strange attractive byeways which caught the eye and roused the impulse to explore; and, as they sped farther, charming little towns and villages which she had never before seen. When once they were through Guildford and upon the Hog's Back the views—thinned and obscured though they were by autumnal mists—were entrancing, and Patricia lay back with colour coming again into her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes. She was cosily warm in the borrowed fur coat; the car, although small, had the movement of one considerably larger; and as Patricia had almost complete ignorance of motoring the experience was new and fine. Everything passed swiftly—everything was glimpsed, half-seen, and immediately succeeded by some other object of beauty or interest, until it seemed as though she must be surfeited, since the greedy mind could not hold so many fleeting images of loveliness. Patricia thought that this must be the way in which children saw the whole of life—as a great swift progress of joys to which they had only to stretch their hands. But those who grew up knew that the joys passed before ever they were gathered. The joys alone? Perhaps the sorrows also. Everything ... everything passed.... That was the thought in her mind. She remembered the French saying.... Everything passes. Would this journey end? Would she always travel unsatisfied, wonder-struck and unresting? Was that her lot? The fear of it made her shiver.

"Cold?" asked Edgar, aside.

Could he see her? Was he then watching, although so apparently intent upon the road? Patricia cried "No!" in response, and a further "Lovely!" in case he should be hurt; and then her eyes stole on a journey. If Edgar could know when she shivered, was there ever to be any escape from his watchfulness, his care? When Patricia, like the Devil, was sick, or afraid, there was nothing she so demanded as care; but when she was well, it irked her. She could see Edgar's face in profile, brown and kind and firm; and she was a little afraid of him. She thought he could be stern. Not cruel—never cruel; but stern. And the words "all the better to eat you with, my dear" crept into Patricia's head. She was very subdued, and although she was still observant of the beauties they passed, and stirred by the rapid motion through crisp air that was now tempered by brilliant sunshine, extraordinarily defensive argumentation was going on in her brain. If she were to marry Edgar, it must be after clear speech between them. Never for comfort or in despair. She was resolved upon that. For one thing, her respect for him exacted as much. Patricia's nerve had been shaken, and she had lost some of her self-confidence; and, with that, some of her natural ease of carriage and pleasure in life itself.

"Where are we going?" she presently called out.

To her surprise, Edgar slowed down. He even stopped, there upon the Hog's Back, with the beautiful country stretching away in two valleys upon each side of the lofty road.

"Wherever you like," he said. "We can lunch at Winchester. There's a village on the way there—a most charming village called Chawton, where Jane Austen lived—full of old thatched houses. You'd like it. I don't know anything more delicious in its way. I don't know if we could get food there."

"Are you hungry?" she asked. Unconsciously her tone was arch; but with pathetic, troubled archness. "And what's that about Jane Austen?"

"Well, I didn't bring anything to eat, and the air will make you hungry. We can either go south from Farnham—only I don't know the roads round Liss or Petersfield;—or we can go on to Winchester, lunch there, and go back by way of Basingstoke. Or we can turn back now and go through Guildford to Godalming...."

"Oh, oh!" cried Patricia. "I don't mind what we do."

"You like it?" He was looking at her in such a peculiar way that Patricia shivered again. It seemed to break her composure, which she was struggling so hard to preserve.

"Oh, my dear," she whispered suddenly. "I'm not worth it!"

Her hands were in his, and her eyes were as candid as his own. So they sat in the car on that bright morning, upon the top of the Hog's Back, and the wide rise and fall of the lower lands spreading to north and south under a slight haze. The sky above them was a deep blue. The road was open, and it seemed that none used it, so peaceful was the scene upon this glorious morning. Only Edgar and Patricia were there, with the breeze around them, and the sunshine ardent, and a sense of the limitlessness of the world strong in both.

It was here that their talk began.