"Come on," he exclaimed gaily, falling in with her mood. "I'll race you to that dead sycamore up the road."
She looked up at him, her face dimpling as she noticed how he towered above her and how broad were the shoulders in the big overcoat. Then she shook her head sadly.
"Nevah again, Bobby! We're too old and dignified. I'd almost as soon think of racing with the Judge as with you now. What if somebody should see us? They'd be shocked to death. There's some one now," she added, peering forward through the dusk.
"Only old Unc' Andy coming back from his rabbit traps," answered Rob, as the grizzled old coloured man shuffled nearer. Uncle Andy had been the gardener at Oaklea more years than Lloyd could remember, and now as he stepped out of the path with elaborate courtesy to let her pass, she delighted his soul by stopping with a friendly inquiry about himself and family.
"Lawd, if it aint the Little Cun'l herself!" he chuckled. "All growed up and a bloomin' like a piney! I reckon, Miss Lloyd, youse forgot the time that you pulled up all the pansies in my flowah beds 'cause you said they was makin' faces at you."
"No, indeed, Uncle Andy," she answered with a laugh, and started to pass on. But the encounter with the old servant seemed somehow to set her back among the days when she had been almost as much at home at Oaklea as she was at The Locusts, and prompted by some sudden impulse she called over her shoulder as she had often called then: "Unc' Andy, tell Mrs. Moore that Mistah Rob won't be home for dinnah. He's going to stay at The Locusts."
It was a familiar message although it had been several years since Andy had heard it. He looked back bowing and scraping, and then walked on chuckling to himself.
Taken by surprise, Rob did not remonstrate when she thus took his consent for granted. If she had waited to ask his permission to send such a message home he would have made some excuse to decline, and then left her at the gate. That night under the measuring tree when he listened to her singing he had resolutely made up his mind to keep out of the way of temptation. Since then he had become convinced that she was engaged to Leland Harcourt and had put her out of his dreams as far as possible. Now that she had left him no choice, he gladly accepted the opportunity that fate seemed to throw in his way, and gave himself up to the enjoyment of it.
The fitful snow had stopped falling again by the time they reached the gate, and the stars were beginning to glimmer through the bare branches of the locust-trees. As Lloyd looked up the avenue, and saw the lights from many windows streaming out across the white-pillared porch into the winter night, her gay mood suddenly changed to one of intense feeling.
"Isn't it deah?" she said in a low voice. "I nevah had it come ovah me so overwhelmingly, how good it is to come back to the things that nevah change—that nevah fail! The home-lights and the home-loves, the same old trees and the same old sta'hs and the same old chum!"