“I? How could I prevent it, pray?”
“Poor numskull, how couldst thou?” echoed the other, half aside.—“Well, well, I fear me, I am caught in my own springe! They might have philandered all summer and naught have come of it.… But I must needs work upon Grandam Chillingburgh, persuade her to summon the naughty grandchild in all haste from a bad match—and ’tis the parting will ruin all!”
He paused, biting his lip over vexed thoughts. Then his alert ear caught the fall of distant footsteps.
“Ah!” he cried, starting, “yonder they come! Let us to the upper terrace, Ned, and watch them from above.”
Sir Edward, who had been endeavouring to hit a bumblebee with his whip, and was lost in the excitement of the sport, burst into a roar of self-applause at an unexpectedly successful stroke:—
“Saw you that? I hit him. I hit him!… A great bumblebee!”
Ratcliffe clenched his hand, exasperated. Then, recalling his self-control, shrugged his shoulders, caught his cousin by the arm, and marched him determinedly toward the upper terrace stairs.
The two whose doings were exciting so much interest in Lionel Ratcliffe’s mind, came slowly along the Peacock Walk and halted beneath the watchers: a pair so well-matched in youth and looks as well to justify apparently the jealous kinsman’s fears.—Harry Rockhurst, stripling just hardening into manhood, keeping some of his boy graciousness in the virility of the newer stage, sunburnt, vigorous; with brown curls tossed back from a broad forehead, and brilliant hazel eyes, keen and bold of vision, as should be those of the noted follower of hounds and hawk: by his side, as tall nearly as her cavalier, Diana Harcourt, the young widow, radiant with the sun on her auburn hair!
As her lover spoke to her, she listened, not unwillingly, and her glance rested on his face with pleasure. Yet there was something well-nigh maternal in this complacence which might have bidden him pause.
“Diana,” the boy cried passionately, “you must hear me; I will speak.”