and from that point of view could not decide how I stood to lose
or gain. In my wildest accesses of vanity I did not suppose Vanna
loved me, but I felt she liked me, and I believe the advantages I
had to offer would be overwhelming to a woman in her position.
So, tossed on the waves of indecision, I inclined to flight.

That night I resolutely began my packing, and wrote a note of
farewell to Lady Meryon. The next morning I furiously undid it,
and destroyed the note. And that afternoon I took the shortest
way to the sun-set road to lounge about and wait for Vanna and
Winifred. She never came, and I was as unreasonably angry as if I
had deserved the blessing of her presence.

Next day I could see that she tried gently hut clearly to
discourage our meeting and for three days I never saw her at all.
Yet I knew that in her solitary life our talks counted for a
pleasure, and when we met again I thought I saw a new softness in
the lovely hazel deeps of her eyes.



III


On the day when things became clear to me, I was walking towards
the Meryons' gates when I met her coming alone along the sunset
road, in the late gold of the afternoon. She looked pale and a
little wearied, and I remembered I wished I did not know every
change of her face as I did. It was a symptom that alarmed my
selfishness - it galled me with the sense that I was no longer