front of her. He was hot after his walk, and with something very
like petulance threw himself into a cane armchair, exclaiming as he
did so with the easy insolence of old familiarity:

'What a girl you are, Stephen! dragging a fellow all the way up here.
Couldn't you have fixed it down below somewhere if you wanted to see
me?'

Strangely enough, as it seemed to her, Stephen did not dislike his
tone of mastery. There was something in it which satisfied her. The
unconscious recognition of his manhood, as opposed to her womanhood,
soothed her in a peaceful way. It was easy to yield to a dominant
man. She was never more womanly than when she answered him softly:

'It was rather unfair; but I thought you would not mind coming so
far. It is so cool and delightful here; and we can talk without
being disturbed.' Leonard was lying back in his chair fanning
himself with his wide-brimmed straw hat, with outstretched legs wide
apart and resting on the back of his heels. He replied with grudging
condescension:

'Yes, it's cool enough after the hot tramp over the fields and
through the wood. It's not so good as the house, though, in one way:
a man can't get a drink here. I say, Stephen, it wouldn't be half
bad if there were a shanty put up here like those at the Grands
Mulets or on the Matterhorn. There could be a tap laid on where a
fellow could quench his thirst on a day like this!'

Before Stephen's eyes floated a momentary vision of a romantic chalet
with wide verandah and big windows looking over the landscape; a