She was silent for a second or two; and he realized that a crowded mass of personal memories was flowing through her mind.

“Some lovely afternoons I’ve had,” she went on, “sitting with my back to a gate and looking at the hedge-parsley. When the corn’s yellow and the poppies are out, I always sit inside the field, with my parasol over my book. I can smell the peculiar bitter smell now of the elder-leaves behind me.”

She drew her fingers away from him and made of her two hands a support for her chin upon the woodwork of the open window. Wolf thought this chin of hers was the smallest he had ever seen. He, too, remained silent, thinking of similar memories of his own, secret and solitary and personal; and he was astonished to note how natural it seemed to both of them, this deliberate indulgence in egoistic recollections.