Infinite, or that it was a favourite expression of Theophrastus that
time was the most valuable thing a man could spend. When breakfast was
announced, one of the covers concealed the mushrooms, which, under my
superintendence, James had done his best to devil. A quiet day
followed, devoted to sedentary recreation after the labours of the run.

The period which I have tried to sketch above may be called the period
of good-fellowship. Whatever else love does for a woman, it makes her
an actress. So we were merely excellent friends till James's eyes were
opened. When that happened, he abruptly discarded good-fellowship. I,
on the other hand, played it the more vigorously. The situation was
mine.

Our day's run became the merest shadow of a formality. The office of
Head Forester lapsed into an absolute sinecure. Love was with
us--triumphant, and no longer to be skirted round by me; fresh,
electric, glorious in James.

We talked--we must have talked. We moved. Our limbs performed their
ordinary, daily movements. But a golden haze hangs over that second
period. When, by the strongest effort of will, I can let my mind stand
by those perfect moments, I seem to hear our voices, low and measured.
And there are silences, fond in themselves and yet more fondly
interrupted by unspoken messages from our eyes. What we really said,
what we actually did, where precisely we two went, I do not know. We
were together, and the blur of love was about us. Always the blur. It
is not that memory cannot conjure up the scene again. It is not that
the scene is clouded by the ill-proportion of a dream. No. It is
because the dream is brought to me by will and not by sleep. The blur
recurs because the blur was there. A love vast as ours is penalised, as