We can talk all the freer for the
fresh air on the hill-top."
Nothing could have suited Alan Merrick better, and he said so at
once. Herminia disappeared for a moment to get her hat. Alan
observed almost without observing it that she was gone but for a
second. She asked none of that long interval that most women
require for the simplest matter of toilet. She was back again
almost instantly, bright and fresh and smiling, in the most modest
of hats, set so artlessly on her head that it became her better
than all art could have made it. Then they started for a long
stroll across the breezy common, yellow in places with upright
spikes of small summer furze, and pink with wild pea-blossom. Bees
buzzed, broom crackled, the chirp of the field cricket rang shrill
from the sand-banks. Herminia's light foot tripped over the spongy
turf. By the top of the furthest ridge, looking down on North
Holmwood church, they sat side by side for a while on the close
short grass, brocaded with daisies, and gazed across at the cropped
sward of Denbies and the long line of the North Downs stretching
away towards Reigate.
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