For the first time the girl in her, long hidden, peeped out at him, shy yet shrewd.
"I remember what they used to say at the Hotel," she answered, with the overwhelming simplicity of the pure in heart.
"You can help me conquer that," he urged. "No one else can, only you."
She said nothing, but gazed at him with new eyes, sweet and very grave, that seemed to sum him up.
At last he had moved her. Swift and sensitive almost as was she, he saw it instantly; and with the profound wisdom of the true lover said no more.
CHAPTER LVII
THE SURPRISE
A few evenings later, he dropped off the lorry in the market-square, determined to pay Ruth a surprise visit two hours before his time, and walk home over Wind-hover afterwards.
He ran down River Lane at the back of the slaughter-house, grinning to himself. At the bottom of the lane a group of young willows bending plume-like over the wall at the corner ambushed him from Frogs' Hall. Covered thus he approached the cottage on tip-toe with the grins, the conspicuous elbow-work and elaborate stealth of the happy conspirator.
Ruth would have put the babe to bed. He would surprise her alone.