It was hard to believe that he had ever had his arms about her. And yet it was Christie who had drawn into herself all those floating intimations of the mystery of a girl’s soul, gathered here and there, like cowslips in green valleys, which were above everything so precious to him.

The chatter of a couple of starlings that sank to the ground behind the wall, quarrelling and scolding, brought him at last to himself. He pulled down his straw-hat over his eyes and moved off homewards.

When he opened the door of Number Thirty-Seven, he found Gerda covered from head to foot in a print apron, her head bound up in a green scarf, brushing the floor of their parlour.

“You can’t come in now,” she said, “unless you want to sit in the bedroom. I’ll be doing the kitchen presently. It’s no good your going in there.”