sitting here alone with me in the twilight. You know this world. Yes, you
know it as I do."

I shrugged my shoulders, remarking with one eye that while the Professor
had been talking the Godowskas had trailed across the lawn towards us.
They confronted the Herr Professor as he stood up.

"Good-evening," quavered Frau Godowska. "Wonderful weather! It has given
me quite a touch of hay fever!" Fraulein Godowska said nothing. She
swooped over a rose growing in the embryo orchard then stretched out her
hand with a magnificent gesture to the Herr Professor. He presented me.

"This is my little English friend of whom I have spoken. She is the
stranger in our midst. We have been eating cherries together."

"How delightful," sighed Frau Godowska. "My daughter and I have often
observed you through the bedroom window. Haven't we, Sonia?"

Sonia absorbed my outward and visible form with an inward and spiritual
glance, then repeated the magnificent gesture for my benefit. The four of
us sat on the bench, with that faint air of excitement of passengers
established in a railway carriage on the qui vive for the train whistle.
Frau Godowska sneezed. "I wonder if it is hay fever," she remarked,
worrying the satin reticule for her handkerchief, "or would it be the dew.
Sonia, dear, is the dew falling?"

Fraulein Sonia raised her face to the sky, and half closed her eyes. "No,
mamma, my face is quite warm. Oh, look, Herr Professor, there are swallows
in flight; they are like a little flock of Japanese thoughts--nicht wahr?"