"Do you want to talk of him?"

"Don't you think that he's improved?"

"He's fatter."

Antonia looked grave.

"No, but really?"

"I don't know," said Shelton; "I can't judge him."

Antonia turned her face away, and something in her att.i.tude alarmed him.

"He was once a sort of gentleman," she said; "why shouldn't he become one again?"

Sitting on the low wall of the kitchen-garden, her head was framed by golden plums. The sun lay barred behind the foliage of the holm oak, but a little patch filtering through a gap had rested in the plum-tree's heart. It crowned the girl. Her raiment, the dark leaves, the red wall, the golden plums, were woven by the pa.s.sing glow to a block of pagan colour. And her face above it, chaste, serene, was like the scentless summer evening. A bird amongst the currant bushes kept a little chant vibrating; and all the plum-tree's shape and colour seemed alive.

"Perhaps he does n't want to be a gentleman," said Shelton.

Antonia swung her foot.

"How can he help wanting to?"

"He may have a different philosophy of life."

Antonia was slow to answer.

"I know nothing about philosophies of life," she said at last.

Shelton answered coldly,

"No two people have the same."

With the falling sun-glow the charm pa.s.sed off the tree. Chilled and harder, yet less deep, it was no more a block of woven colour, warm and impa.s.sive, like a southern G.o.ddess; it was now a northern tree, with a grey light through its leaves.

"I don't understand you in the least," she said; "everyone wishes to be good."

"And safe?" asked Shelton gently.

Antonia stared.

"Suppose," he said--"I don't pretend to know, I only suppose--what Ferrand really cares for is doing things differently from other people?

If you were to load him with a character and give him money on condition that he acted as we all act, do you think he would accept it?"

"Why not?"

"Why are n't cats dogs; or pagans Christians?"

Antonia slid down from the wall.

"You don't seem to think there 's any use in trying," she said, and turned away.

Shelton made a movement as if he would go after her, and then stood still, watching her figure slowly pa.s.s, her head outlined above the wall, her hands turned back across her narrow hips. She halted at the bend, looked back, then, with an impatient gesture, disappeared.

Antonia was slipping from him!

A moment's vision from without himself would have shown him that it was he who moved and she who was standing still, like the figure of one watching the pa.s.sage of a stream with clear, direct, and sullen eyes.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE RIVER

One day towards the end of August Shelton took Antonia on the river--the river that, like soft music, soothes the land; the river of the reeds and poplars, the silver swan-sails, sun and moon, woods, and the white slumbrous clouds; where cuckoos, and the wind, the pigeons, and the weirs are always singing; and in the flash of naked bodies, the play of waterlily leaves, queer goblin stumps, and the twilight faces of the twisted tree-roots, Pan lives once more.

The reach which Shelton chose was innocent of launches, champagne bottles and loud laughter; it was uncivilised, and seldom troubled by these humanising influences. He paddled slowly, silent and absorbed, watching Antonia. An unaccustomed languor clung about her; her eyes had shadows, as though she had not slept; colour glowed softly in her cheeks, her frock seemed all alight with golden radiance. She made Shelton pull into the reeds, and plucked two rounded lilies sailing like ships against slow-moving water.

"Pull into the shade, please," she said; "it's too hot out here."

The brim of her linen hat kept the sun from her face, but her head was drooping like a flower's head at noon.

Shelton saw that the heat was really harming her, as too hot a day will dim the icy freshness of a northern plant. He dipped his sculls, the ripples started out and swam in grave diminuendo till they touched the banks.

He shot the boat into a cleft, and caught the branches of an overhanging tree. The skiff rested, balancing with mutinous vibration, like a living thing.

"I should hate to live in London," said Antonia suddenly; "the slums must be so awful. What a pity, when there are places like this! But it's no good thinking."

"No," answered Shelton slowly! "I suppose it is no good."

"There are some bad cottages at the lower end of Cross Eaton. I went them one day with Miss Truecote. The people won't help themselves. It's so discouraging to help people who won't help themselves."

She was leaning her elbows on her knees, and, with her chin resting on her hands, gazed up at Shelton. All around them hung a tent of soft, thick leaves, and, below, the water was deep-dyed with green refraction.

Willow boughs, swaying above the boat, caressed Antonia's arms and shoulders; her face and hair alone were free.

"So discouraging," she said again.

A silence fell.... Antonia seemed thinking deeply.

"Doubts don't help you," she said suddenly; "how can you get any good from doubts? The thing is to win victories."

"Victories?" said Shelton. "I 'd rather understand than conquer!"

He had risen to his feet, and grasped stunted branch, canting the boat towards the bank.

"How can you let things slide like that, d.i.c.k? It's like Ferrand."

"Have you such a bad opinion of him, then?" asked Shelton. He felt on the verge of some, discovery.