Tree-Tops stood half-way up the hill, looking out across a terraced garden. At the foot of the hill lay a plain, where hamlets nestled beneath the wings of trees, and meadows washed about the shores of yellow wheat-lands like green rivers in flood. In blue pastures, beyond the edge of the horizon, white clouds wandered like browsing sheep.

The windows of Tree-Tops were latticed. The roof was thatched. It was no more than a converted cottage. It blinked at you as though it wore spectacles.

Behind it ran a Roman road, buried deep in the leaves of centuries. On the brow of the hill was a legionaries’ camp. To show where the road ended a white cross had been cut, by turning back the sod from the underlying chalk. Gathered about the camp in a half-circle, spreading back for miles through uplands, was a beech-forest whose leaves fluttered like green butterflies crucified on boughs of silver. Clouds trailed slowly over it, or hung snared in its topmost branches.

Over the shoulder of the hill, immediately behind the Faun Man’s house, lay a golf-course with vivid squares of close-cropped turf from which red flags waved angrily as poppies. Across the valley shone fields of mustard, like sunlight falling in sudden patches.

The Faun Man puzzled Curious Corner. The village might have been named in prophecy of his advent, with such extraordinary oddness did he conduct his household. Like birds hopping in and out of a hedge, his visitors came and went without knocking. Nobody tried to explain anybody; no one at Tree-Tops thought explanation necessary.

The women were young and dashing; certainly they were not married to the men. If they were wicked—which was never proved—they were decidedly light-hearted.

By day they played golf and rode horseback. By night they sat in the terraced garden, where fragrances wandered like old, sweet memories; there, to the tinkling of banjos and mandolins, they sang till dusk had brimmed the valleys and the moon sailed solitary. When their laughter had grown tired, a light would spring up in a room beneath the thatch where the Faun Man worked. Sometimes it would outstay the dawn. The villagers watched these doings from a distance. They wagged their heads.

But if Tree-Tops had the reputation for being wild, there could be no doubt that its master had money. He drove a four-in-hand from Oxford to London. He rode a horse called Satan, which no one could manage; it had killed two men already. And the money! He coined it with his pen—so it was reported.

But the inhabitants of Curious Corner never guessed the motive of all this frivolity: that the Faun Man wasn’t really living—was only distracting himself, till a woman with golden hair should nod, when life would commence.

And the golden woman! Peter saw her often: in Oxford; when he cycled out with Harry to Tree-Tops; during his vacations in London. He couldn’t believe what Harry told him—that she was cold and selfish. Everything that she did was tender, from the caressing way she had of speaking to the childish frankness with which she slipped her hand into his own when she was happy. She made everyone love her and everyone forgive her—everyone except Harry and Cherry. She had studied the art of appearing adorable, so that what in others were faults in her took on the glamour of attractions. She was so fond of the Faun Man—why didn’t she marry him? Peter didn’t know. He gave it up—shrugged his shoulders. Somewhere underground, as in his own life, the body of love lay buried. In the stillness, did he listen, he could hear jealousy gnawing—gnawing like a rat in the coffin of a dead princess. Once, in reading one of the Faun Man’s books, he came across a jotting in the margin, the thought of which had no bearing on the text. It was as though thwarted longing had cried aloud, suddenly becoming aware of its own tragedy. The sentence read: “Life is slipping away from us. I have tried to make you love me. And yet——.”

The bond of sympathy which existed between himself and the golden woman increased in strength and knowledge. He could talk to her of so many things concerning which he was silent to other people. Being in love, he had to talk to someone. She was so wise in the advice she gave him. By the patience with which she listened, she seemed to tell him that she herself had endured the same indifference. How that could be he did not understand. She encouraged him to make confession. It became a habit. Perhaps the trust which he placed in her flattered her. It may have been that his capacity for being so sheerly young tantalized her—she desired above all things to be always young herself. Without doubt his implicit faith in her goodness helped to silence her self-despisings.

But she was not above using their friendship as a means of provoking the Faun Man. She would slip her arm about Peter’s neck and say, “No chance for you now, Lorie.”

Her lover’s eyes would rest on her broodingly and film over, hiding his thoughts, “Oh, well, I have Cherry.” Even though Cherry knew that it was said in pretence, her face would grow radiant. It hurt Peter. He would willingly have given the best years of his life to make her care for him like that. It was then that he listened, and heard within himself the gnawing of the rat of jealousy.

Cherry—he made no progress with her. She seemed to like him, and she held him off. She avoided being left alone with him. In company there were times when she treated him with intimacy—times when she ignored him. While all his actions told her plainly that in his life she was the supreme interest, she seemed to go out of her way to inform him, without words, that in hers he was secondary. Then, when he had grown tired and had almost determined to cure himself, she would do something unexpected and considerate which kept him hoping. Only at parting did she allow herself to appear glad of him. She had the power of chilling him with her graciousness, while with her gray eyes she allured him. Cherry! Cherry! Her name set all his world to music.

One day he found her alone at Tree-Tops. She had fallen asleep in the bay-window, which looked out over the plain where the meadows flowed smoothly and the wheat-fields ripened. The others had left her—had gone over the shoulder of the hill to play golf. He had cycled out from Oxford without warning. Climbing through the steep garden, busy with the stir of birds and insects, he espied her curled up like a kitten among the cushions, her eyes fast shut and her breath coming softly. He stooped over her, tempted by the redness of her mouth. Her eyes opened. She showed no embarrassment—made no attempt to brush away her sleepiness. She did not move, but lay there meeting his gaze quietly.

He broke the silence. “Cherry, why do you always avoid touching me? We’re farther apart now than we were—were when we first met. I can’t surprise you any longer by telling you that I love you. And yet—and yet to me it’s still wonderful. Why do you always treat me as though I were nothing?”

“Do I? I don’t mean to.”

He sat down beside her and took her hand. “Shall I go away? If I went away you might learn to miss me.”

She turned toward him gently. “Please, please, Peter, don’t do that.”

“Then you do want me—you would miss me? I never know what you think of me. You never tell me—never betray yourself.”

She let her fingers nestle in his hand. “There’s only one Peter. Of course I’d miss you. I don’t need to tell you that. I like you very much, Peter.”

He looked away across the unheeding country. “Like! Yes, but liking isn’t loving.”

Voices were heard and footsteps approaching. She sat up hurriedly, smoothing out her dress. “I’d so much rather be friends. I’d be such a good little friend to you, Peter, if you’d only be content with that.”

Content with that! He shook his head.

“Cherry, I couldn’t.”

The Faun Man and the golden woman entered. They were laughing. “You always treat me in public as if we were alone together. Really, Lorie, I wish you——.”

Then she saw Peter seated close to Cherry. Her eyes saddened.