'Oh yes,' she panted—she was quite out of breath with running in the hot sun—'I have met Mr. Gwatkin before.'
She didn't see, until Pamela's brother introduced her, that the other man leaning over the bridge was Wyatt Edgell. She was so flustered with running, and so taken by surprise, that she blushed like a peony.
She felt she was blushing furiously, and that Pamela, cool and critical and self-possessed, was watching her. Oh, how she hated herself for not being cool and dignified and self-possessed like other people!
They walked back over the Fen and through the lane to Newnham in couples, Lucy and Wyatt Edgell in front, Pamela and her brother behind. Lucy would have given the world to have reversed the order, but the man took his place by her side, and he wouldn't go away until he left her at the gate of Newnham.
'You have met me before, Miss Rae, as well as Gwatkin,' he said, as he walked by Lucy's side. 'I believe he invited you in to see the spectacle.'
'He didn't invite me in at all,' Lucy said hotly; 'I came in. You were very ill when I saw you; I did not expect you would get well so soon.'
'No?' he said indifferently, 'I suppose not. It did not much matter either way.'
'It mattered a great deal!' she said sharply. She was very angry with him for speaking in that absurd way—absurd and ungrateful—considering what a trouble he had been to his friends. 'It mattered a great deal to Mr. Gwatkin. Oh, you don't know how anxious he was about you! He saved your life.'
'Yes,' he said in his slow, indifferent way, flicking with his cane at the nettles in the hedge; 'I believe he did. It was rather a pity he should have taken so much trouble, but I suppose he liked it. I believe he didn't get off his knees all one night. He's always glad of an excuse for getting on his knees.'