Yet so cleverly he addressed his story that the longest monologue became, by aid of a look or pressure of the hand, a conversation in which she, his guardian angel, bore her part.

Did he talk of Avignon, for instance?
It was the land of Laura and Petrarch, and she, seated with half-closed eyes beneath the Bayfield elms, saw the pair beside the waters of Vaucluse, saw the roses and orange-trees and arid plains of Provence, and wondered at the trouble in their spiritual love.

She was not troubled; love as "a dureless content and a trustless joy" lay outside of her knowledge, and she had no desire to prove it.

In this only she forgot the difference between Raoul's age and hers.
The day came when his work was ended.

They spent a great part of that afternoon in the garden, now in the height of its midsummer glory.
Raoul was very silent.
"But this must not end.