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“Well—now you know better, why don’t you come back and talk to people in the ordinary way?”

This was the first and last sign she gave that the circumstances in which she found herself with him were anything but ordinary.

“I have a book to finish,” said he. “Would you like to have tea in the wilderness or in here?” He wisely took her consent for granted this time, and his wisdom was justified.

They had tea in the garden. The wilderness blossomed like a rose, to Maurice’s thinking. In his mind he was saying over and over again: “How bored I must have been all this time! How bored I must have been!”

It seemed to him that his mind was opening, like a flower, and for the first time. He had never talked so well, and he knew it—all the seeds of thought, sown in those long, lonely hours, bore fruit now. She listened, she replied, she argued and debated.

“Beautiful—and sensible,” said Maurice to himself. “What a wonderful woman!” There was, besides, an alertness of mind, a quick brightness of manner that charmed him. Camilla had been languid and dreamy.

Suddenly she rose to her feet.