On this November evening, traces of a recent hail-shower still gleamed on the black railings, on the slopes of grass, on the dark-boled trees, each standing in the circle of its own lovely droppings. The naked sky, lofty and compassionate, flung its arch over a glittering world. And in that arch, incredibly remote, ineffably pure, hung the pale waxing moon like a beaker of fretted silver. To the right of the path chosen by Mario and Joanna, a tree crowned with a top-knot of ivy sheltered a noisy tribe of starlings. It swayed gently under the birds’ impetuous communings. Over the pink granite bridge swung a glossy private carriage drawn by a pair of bays, and Mario pulled Joanna aside so that she should not be spattered by the mud which lay thick on the road.

Having crossed the river the two climbed the farther hill. Here and there were seats on little semicircular terraces facing the University, and on one of these they sat down. Mario, as usual, spoke first.

“How like olives those are, except for the colour,” he said, “are they not?” He was pointing to a group of small, distorted trees on the slope below them.

“I’ve never seen olive trees.”

“No? But you shall, and soon. Yes, as soon as possible.” Mario spoke meditatively, as if calculating, and his eyes did not leave the trees. The girl wondered at his prolonged interest in them.

“What kind of trees are they?” he asked her.

Joanna crimsoned. Truly, beside this man she felt her ignorance. But deeper than her shame was the sensual gratification of this inferiority.

“That one is a willow, I know,” she said, pointing to a nearer tree. Its long pliant boughs trailed their ends on the grass all round it, hiding the central stem. “Isn’t it like a cage?”

“A cage, yes,” he agreed; and again he turned his eyes from the tree to Joanna’s face.

“How would you like to live in a cage, a cage full of sunshine and beauty and delight, a cage of which the man you loved kept the key?”

“I don’t think I should like it, thank you.”

“Why not?”

“A cage is a prison, isn’t it?”

“A prison!” Mario made a gesture of despair. “Oh, you English women with your phrases!”

“I’m not English, I’m Scotch.”

“Well, you Scottish women with your theories! Tell me what are the things in the world of best worth to a woman? Are they not air, light, gaiety, love, ease, shelter from the brutalities of life, children, tenderness, adoration? Does this freedom you talk of secure these? Does it not in reality make them impossible? Tell me, you learned little girl of Glasgow, will freedom give you what you hunger for? Look at me, and tell me.”

But Joanna stared persistently at the willow.

“Look at me,” he repeated.