They went for shade down to the burn, and there they sat to talk. They talked till the afternoon drew in, but it seemed to them that they could never be done disclosing to each other the so widely differing courses of their two lives which had yet converged at last.

Joanna told about Gerald, her first love who close by where they sat had skinned the wild birds, and about Alec Peddie’s offer in this very spot (how Lawrence laughed at that!) to show her what lads were for. And she talked of Mario and Italy and Aunt Perdy. Of Louis she found she could not yet speak plainly. The reminiscent misery of that was still too raw. But when she told, as she did, of the secret garden door of La Porziuncola, and of all that love had meant to her … escape … adventure … excitement … learning … possession of the world … she found that Lawrence understood. She knew well that no corner of her life would be – or need ever be – kept from him.

And when in turn he told her of his life, she listened amazed. Where she had been as a field under the harrow, never left in peace, he had lived folded in upon himself. She knew now what he (and Carl too) had meant when they reckoned him as the seed and her as the clod of earth. For in her had lain his one means of escape, and she had denied him. Elsewhere he had been able neither to give nor to take in any vital way. His essence and his treasure had lain hoarded up for her alone.

In an interval of their talk she laved her face in the stream and they squatted gaily to share the food Lawrence had brought in his rucksack. When they had eaten it all they fell silent at last. Joanna rested, leaning slackly against a beech trunk. Her hat was off so that the long unfastened braid of her hair hung fallen behind like a schoolgirl’s, and round her forehead the smaller locks clung to the skin in damp rings. Except for the bright patch of sunburn where her linen blouse fell open at the neck, and a vivid stain on either forearm, she now looked cool as satin.

“How old are you?” asked Lawrence out of the quietness.

“Thirty.”

“I suppose you are!”

“Why?” She answered the wonder in his tone. “How old do I look to you?”

“No particular age. But you look just such a lassie!” he said.

“Not weary and worn?”

“Not now at any rate.”

“But sometimes … eh? When I look like a juggler? You remember!”

“Yes. I’ve seen you so. And you looked horribly beautiful. All the same, I like best for you to be as you are now. You were meant to be all freshness.”

“Yet one has to grow old and even middle-aged. And thirty is a good way towards it?” she questioned wistfully.