"We go with Lucy?" said Freddy, as if taking orders.

"Yes, you go with Lucy."

They passed into the sunlight. Cecil watched them cross the
terrace, and descend out of sight by the steps. They would
descend--he knew their ways--past the shrubbery, and past the
tennis-lawn and the dahlia-bed, until they reached the kitchen
garden, and there, in the presence of the potatoes and the peas,
the great event would be discussed.

Smiling indulgently, he lit a cigarette, and rehearsed the events
that had led to such a happy conclusion.

He had known Lucy for several years, but only as a commonplace
girl who happened to be musical. He could still remember his
depression that afternoon at Rome, when she and her terrible
cousin fell on him out of the blue, and demanded to be taken to
St. Peter's. That day she had seemed a typical tourist--shrill,
crude, and gaunt with travel. But Italy worked some marvel in
her. It gave her light, and--which he held more precious--it gave
her shadow. Soon he detected in her a wonderful reticence. She
was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci's, whom we love not so much
for herself as for the things that she will not tell us, The
things are assuredly not of this life; no woman of Leonardo's
could have anything so vulgar as a "story." She did develop most
wonderfully day by day.

So it happened that from patronizing civility he had slowly
passed if not to passion, at least to a profound uneasiness.