"Reigns are short—and rhapsodies seem likely to be rather long, Arthur. I think I'll go and write a letter, and leave you to simmer down a bit."
"Oh, I'm an ass, I know, but——"
"Yes, and not only about the house!" She turned to leave him, with a wave of her hand. "You'll get over all of it some day."
He watched her slender white-frocked figure as she walked across the lawn and into the porch. From there she looked back, waving her hand again; he pictured, though he could not at the distance see, the affectionate mocking little smile with which she was wont to meet his accesses of extravagant admiration, disclaiming what she accepted, ridiculing what she let him see was welcome. His memory took an enduring portrait of her there in the doorway of her home.
His heart was gay as he wandered about, "drinking it in," as Bernadette had bidden him. The sojourn before him seemed an eternity full of delight. The future beyond that month was indeed charged with interest; was there not the great farce, was there not now the strange fact of Messrs. Wills and Mayne, with whose aid imagination could play almost any trick it pleased? Still these things admitted of postponement. Arthur postponed them thoroughly, to fling himself into the flood of present happiness.
His roving steps soon brought him to the banks of the stream; he had been promised fishing there and was eager to make an inspection. But he was to make an acquaintance instead. On a bench by the water a little girl sat all by herself, nursing a doll without a head, and looking across the river with solemn steady eyes. Directly Arthur saw her face he knew her for Margaret, sole daughter of the house.
Hearing his step, the child turned towards him with a rather apprehensive look, and hastily hid the headless doll behind her back. She reminded him of her father so strongly that he smiled; there was the same shy embarrassment; the profile too was a whimsical miniature of Godfrey's, and her hair was the colour of his—it hung very straight, without curls, without life or riot in it.
"You're Margaret, aren't you?" he asked, sitting down by her. She nodded. "I'm Cousin Arthur."
"Oh yes, I knew you were coming."
"Why have you put dolly behind your back?"