"But the mouth, I mean?"
"Oh, the mouth—the mouth is here. We were very nearly driving over that too. But we'll have lunch first, my dear, before we investigate the caves—if it's agreeable to you. I will take the horses out, and we'll find a nice place to camp before they come."
Presently the other buggy climbed over the ridge and down into the hollow; and Mr. Yelverton beheld Elizabeth kneeling amongst the bracken fronds, with the dappled sun and shade on her bare head and her blue cotton gown, busily trying to spread a table-cloth on the least uneven piece of ground that she could find, where it lay like a miniature snow-clad landscape, all hills except where the dishes weighed it to the earth. He hastened to help her as soon as he had lifted Patty and Eleanor from their seats.
"You are making yourself hot," he said, with his quiet air of authority and proprietorship. "You sit down, and let me do it. I am quite used to commissariat business, and can set a table beautifully." He took some tumblers from her hand, and, looking into her agitated face, said suddenly, "I could not help coming, Elizabeth—I could not leave it broken off like that—I wanted to know why you ran away from me—and Mrs. Duff-Scott gave me leave. You will let me talk to you presently?"
"Oh, not now—not now!" she replied, in a hurried, low tone, turning her head from side to side. "I must have time to think—"
"Time to think!" he repeated, with just a touch of reproach in his grave surprise. And he put down the tumblers carefully, got up, and walked away. Upon which, Elizabeth, reacting violently from the mood in which she had received him, had an agonising fear that he would impute her indecision to want of love for him, or insensibility to his love for her—though, till now, that had seemed an impossibility. In a few minutes he returned with her sisters and Mr. Brion, all bearing dishes and bottles, and buggy cushions and rugs; and, when the luncheon was ready, and the groom had retired to feed and water his horses, she lifted her eyes to her tall lover's face with a look that he understood far better than she did. He quietly came round from the log on which he had been about to seat himself, and laid his long limbs on the sand and bracken at her side.
"What will you have?" he asked carelessly; "roast beef and salad, or chicken pie? I can recommend the salad, which has travelled remarkably well." And all the time he was looking at her with happy contentment, a little smile under his red moustache; and her heart was beating so that she could not answer him.
The luncheon was discussed at leisure, and, as far as Mr. Brion could judge, was a highly successful entertainment. The younger girls, whatever might be going to happen to-morrow, could not help enjoying themselves to-day—could not help getting a little intoxicated with the sweetness of the summer air and the influences of the scene generally, and breaking out in fun and laughter; even Elizabeth, with her desperate anxieties, was not proof against the contagion of their good spirits now and then. The travelled stranger, who talked a great deal, was the most entertaining of guests, and the host congratulated himself continually on having added him to the party. "We only want Paul now to make it all complete," said the happy old man, as he gave Patty, who had a dreadful appetite after her long drive, a second helping of chicken pie.
When the sylvan meal was ended, and the unsightly remnants cleared away, the two men smoked a soothing cigarette under the trees, while the girls tucked up their clean gowns a little and tied handkerchiefs over their heads, and then Mr. Brion, armed with matches and a pound of candles, marched them off to see the caves. He took them but a little way from where they had camped, and disclosed in the hillside what looked like a good-sized wombat or rabbit hole. "Now, you stay here while I go and light up a bit," he said, impressively, and he straightway slid down and disappeared into the hole. They stooped and peered after him, and saw a rather muddy narrow shaft slanting down into the earth, through which the human adult could only pass "end on." The girls were rather dismayed at the prospect.
"It is a case of faith," said Mr. Yelverton. "We must trust ourselves to Mr. Brion entirely or give it up."