"Surely we will," Kerr answered her.

But Flora had the feeling that they never, never would. For him it had been a chance touching on a strange shore.

But at least they were going away together. They would walk together as far as the little car, whose terminal was the edge of the parade-ground. But just outside of the gate he stopped.

"Do you especially like boardwalks?" he asked.

It was an instant before she took his meaning. Then she laughed. "No. I like green paths."

He waved with his cane. "There is a path yonder, that goes over a bridge, and beyond that a hill."

"And at the top of that another car," Flora reminded him.

"Ah well," he said, "there are flowers on the way, at least." He looked at her whimsically. "There are three purple irises under the bridge. I noticed them as I came down."

She was pleased that he had noticed that for himself--pleased, too, that he had suggested the longer way.

The narrow path that they had chosen branched out upon the main path, broad and yellow, which dipped downward into the hollow. From there came the murmur of water. Green showed through the white grass of last summer. The odor of wet evergreens was pungent in their nostrils. They looked at the delicate fringed acacias, at the circle of hills showing above the low treetops, at the cloudless sky; but always their eyes returned to each other's faces, as if they found these the pleasantest points of the landscape. Sauntering between plantations of young eucalyptus, they came to the arched stone bridge. They leaned on the parapet, looking down at the marshy stream beneath and at the three irises Kerr had remarked, knee-deep in swamp ground."Now that I see them I suppose I want them," Flora remarked.
"Of course," he assented. "Then hold all these."
He put into her hands the loose bunch of syringa and rose plucked for 
her in the Purdies' garden, laid his hat and gloves on the parapet;
then, with an eye for the better bank, walked to the end of the bridge.
She watched him descending the steep bank and issuing into the broad 
shallow basin of the stream's way. The sun was still high enough to fill 
the hollows with warm light and mellow the doubles of trees and grass in 
the stream. In this landscape of green and pale gold he looked black and 
tall and angular. The wind blew longish locks of hair across his 

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