“The dancers come right at the end,” he said, coming back to them.

And isn’t it pleasant, Fanny went on thinking, how young men bring out lots of silver coins from their trouser pockets, and look at them, instead of having just so many in a purse?

Then there she was herself, whirling across the stage in white flounces, and the music was the dance and fling of her own soul, and the whole machinery, rock and gear of the world was spun smoothly into those swift eddies and falls, she felt, as she stood rigid leaning over the barrier two feet from Jacob Flanders.

Her screwed-up black glove dropped to the floor.  When Jacob gave it her, she started angrily.  For never was there a more irrational passion.  And Jacob was afraid of her for a moment—­so violent, so dangerous is it when young women stand rigid; grasp the barrier; fall in love.

It was the middle of February.  The roofs of Hampstead Garden Suburb lay in a tremulous haze.  It was too hot to walk.  A dog barked, barked, barked down in the hollow.  The liquid shadows went over the plain.

The body after long illness is languid, passive, receptive of sweetness, but too weak to contain it.  The tears well and fall as the dog barks in the hollow, the children skim after hoops, the country darkens and brightens.  Beyond a veil it seems.  Ah, but draw the veil thicker lest I faint with sweetness, Fanny Elmer sighed, as she sat on a bench in Judges Walk looking at Hampstead Garden Suburb.  But the dog went on barking.  The motor cars hooted on the road.  She heard a far-away rush and humming.  Agitation was at her heart.  Up she got and walked.  The grass was freshly green; the sun hot.  All round the pond children were stooping to launch little boats; or were drawn back screaming by their nurses.

At mid-day young women walk out into the air.  All the men are busy in the town.  They stand by the edge of the blue pond.  The fresh wind scatters the children’s voices all about.  My children, thought Fanny Elmer.  The women stand round the pond, beating off great prancing shaggy dogs.  Gently the baby is rocked in the perambulator.  The eyes of all the nurses, mothers, and wandering women are a little glazed, absorbed.  They gently nod instead of answering when the little boys tug at their skirts, begging them to move on.

And Fanny moved, hearing some cry—­a workman’s whistle perhaps—­high in mid-air.  Now, among the trees, it was the thrush trilling out into the warm air a flutter of jubilation, but fear seemed to spur him, Fanny thought; as if he too were anxious with such joy at his heart—­as if he were watched as he sang, and pressed by tumult to sing.  There!  Restless, he flew to the next tree.  She heard his song more faintly.  Beyond it was the humming of the wheels and the wind rushing.

She spent tenpence on lunch.

“Dear, miss, she’s left her umbrella,” grumbled the mottled woman in the glass box near the door at the Express Dairy Company’s shop.