They went and sat down near Mrs.Vivian for ten minutes, and then they got up again and strolled to another part of the garden.

They had it all to themselves, and it was filled with things that Bernard liked--inequalities of level, with mossy steps connecting them, rose-trees trained upon old brick walls, horizontal trellises arranged like Italian pergolas, and here and there a towering poplar, looking as if it had survived from some more primitive stage of culture, with its stiff boughs motionless and its leaves forever trembling.

They made almost the whole circuit of the garden, and then Angela mentioned very quietly that she had heard that morning from Mr.Wright, and that he would not return for another week.
"You had better stay," she presently added, as if Gordon's continued absence were an added reason.
"I don't know," said Bernard.

"It is sometimes difficult to say what one had better do." I hesitate to bring against him that most inglorious of all charges, an accusation of sentimental fatuity, of the disposition to invent obstacles to enjoyment so that he might have the pleasure of seeing a pretty girl attempt to remove them.

But it must be admitted that if Bernard really thought at present that he had better leave Baden, the observation I have just quoted was not so much a sign of this conviction as of the hope that his companion would proceed to gainsay it.