“Steady on, boy! I’ve forgotten all my classics ages ago,” I cried.
He turned and gazed down on me, his big eyes glowing, and not a sign of perspiration on his skin.
“That’s nothing,” he exclaimed in his musical, deep voice. “You know it, or you’d never have felt things in this wood last night; and you wouldn’t have wanted to come out with me now!”
“How?” I gasped. “How’s that?”
“You’ve come,” he continued quietly, “to the only valley in this artificial country that has atmosphere. This valley is alive — especially this end of it. There’s superstition here, thank God! Even the peasants know things.”
I stared at him. “See here, Arthur,” I objected. “I’m not a Cath. And I don’t know a thing — at least it’s all dead in me and forgotten — about poetry or classics or your gods and pan — pa
