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 the river. Tea was always an easy, pleasant ceremony on their wanderings and one never omitted. He and Jill had managed to make tea in the most unlikely places. Something about the pretty, domestic neatness of it all, the waiting caddy, the singing kettle, the plate of petits beurres, showed him that she had been confident of his return and as he went to her and kissed her he said: 'It is good to find you here.'

'Where else should you find me!' smiled Jill, looking up at him.

He kissed her again and ran his hand over her bright, short hair. 'Rather jolly, all the same, our life, isn't it, Jill?' he said.

Jill had been feeling depressed, had been thinking about England, but the mood was dispelled by Dick's loving gaze.

'I should rather say it was!' she replied. 'It sometimes almost frightens me to think how happy we are, when so many other people come such croppers.'

'Well, we're rather an exceptional couple, aren't we,' said Graham, going to his chair. 'We are exceptionally attractive, for one thing, so that it requires no effort for us to remain fond of each other. And we know how to arrange our lives, to cut out the inessential things that suffocate so many people, and to keep the essential.—Solitude; nature; work.'

Jill wondered what her work might be; but since, even at home, she had nothing that could accurately so be described, she only said: 'How did the portrait go? Was she pleased to see you?'