Jem did not mark this. Usually he saw everything; but his whole attention was given to Evelyn. Her delight with the exquisite tints, the lights and shades of the gorge, was pretty as a study; and it meant more than a study to Jem. She did not use up a vocabulary of adjectives, but the closed lips parted, the violet eyes deepened, the blush-rose tint of her cheeks grew bright. She went slowly—it could not be too slowly for Jem!—devouring with earnest gaze every detail of light and shadow. Jem was enchained with the grace of her movements, the more remarkable from utter absence of self-consciousness. He had never come across any one like her before, though the girls he had known were in number legion.
Still Evelyn said nothing till they reached a wilder part, less shut in. Trees grew scanty, and the rocks were steep and bare, while the stream rushed swiftly through a straitened bed, foaming past with a sweet high note. Then she did say "Oh!" and her eyes went in a swift appeal for sympathy to Jem. Not in the least because he was Jem, but only because in her joy she wanted a response from somebody.
Jem could hardly be expected to understand exactly how things were. He realised only that a new world was opening out before him—a new world in the shape of Evelyn Devereux. If he had not been already taken captive, this one glance would have done the business. Such a pair of great violet eyes, liquid, radiant, fringed all round with even lashes, turned full upon him, as if he, and he alone, could enter into her delight—what chance had he? And yet he was nothing to Evelyn. She would have bestowed the same look upon almost anybody who had happened to stand in his place at the moment. It was simply the natural expression of her pleasure.
Jem was a devotee of Nature commonly; but the sole item of Nature which he had eyes for on this particular day was a human item. The fair scenery of the gorge was lost upon him. He forgot even the presence of the children, and saw only Evelyn.
She had the dumb response she wanted, and went on, thinking no more about him. Jem was content not to talk. His one wish was to be allowed to walk beside Evelyn indefinitely, watching the play of feeling in her face. But this could not last; and somewhere in his mind, he was counting on five minutes of her free attention, when they should have crossed the rustic bridge, into the path which led away from the gorge, straight to the Ripley Brow grounds. The gorge itself would take a sharp bend just after the bridge, becoming then the second arm or branch of the letter V, and growing for a while even more rugged and wild in character, before it flattened and sobered down.
When, however, the bridge had been crossed, and Jem's hopes were high, a clerical figure could be seen striding down the glen towards them.
"Mr. Trevelyan!" exclaimed Evelyn.
She had taken, as already intimated, a strong girlish fancy to the Rector; and, as also intimated, the fancy was being fed by opposition. Left alone, it might have sunk into insignificance. Stamped upon, it was sure to flourish.
"How do you do?" said Mr. Trevelyan. He had always a curt and rigid manner, but a certain softness crept into his eyes as he bent them on Evelyn; for no man could be grim to Evelyn Devereux.
Jem received a handshake, and a brief, "Heard you were coming."