"I am," Rachel stated.
"You believe in a personal God?" Hirst demanded, turning round and fixing her with his eyeglasses.
"I believe—I believe," Rachel stammered, "I believe there are things we don't know about, and the world might change in a minute and anything appear."
At this Helen laughed outright. "Nonsense," she said. "You're not a Christian. You've never thought what you are.—And there are lots of other questions," she continued, "though perhaps we can't ask them yet." Although they had talked so freely they were all uncomfortably conscious that they really knew nothing about each other.
"The important questions," Hewet pondered, "the really interesting ones. I doubt that one ever does ask them."
Rachel, who was slow to accept the fact that only a very few things can be said even by people who know each other well, insisted on knowing what he meant.
"Whether we've ever been in love?" she enquired. "Is that the kind of question you mean?"
Again Helen laughed at her, benignantly strewing her with handfuls of the long tasselled grass, for she was so brave and so foolish.
"Oh, Rachel," she cried. "It's like having a puppy in the house having you with one—a puppy that brings one's underclothes down into the hall."
But again the sunny earth in front of them was crossed by fantastic wavering figures, the shadows of men and women.
"There they are!" exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. There was a touch of peevishness in her voice. "And we've had such a hunt to find you. Do you know what the time is?"
Mrs. Elliot and Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury now confronted them; Mrs. Elliot was holding out her watch, and playfully tapping it upon the face. Hewet was recalled to the fact that this was a party for which he was responsible, and he immediately led them back to the watch-tower, where they were to have tea before starting home again. A bright crimson scarf fluttered from the top of the wall, which Mr. Perrott and Evelyn were tying to a stone as the others came up. The heat had changed just so far that instead of sitting in the
