"He says he didn't know how much he loved me before," she said, half-unwillingly. "He found it out when he saw me here. I'm much nicer in the country than I was in London."
"I didn't see much difference. You've always been much the same to him."
"Oh, he didn't mean that. I'm a different person in the country. In London I'm one of the crowd; here I'm myself. Well, I feel that, you know. I am different. He thinks I'm much nicer. Do you think I'm much nicer, Dad?"
He put his hand caressingly on her neck. "You're always just what I want you," he said. "I'm not sure I don't want you damnably too. I should be lost here without you, especially with B so much away."
"Would you, darling? Well then, that settles it. I don't want to be married yet. I want to stay here with you."
As she was dressing, later on, she wondered exactly what it was that had made her take this sudden decision, and feel a sense of freedom and lightness in having taken it. She had not intended to refuse Francis definitely when she had gone out to her father a couple of hours before; but now she was going to do so. She liked him as much as ever—or thought she did. But his importunities had troubled her a little during her week in London. They had never been such as to have caused her to reject advances for which she was not yet ready. He had made no claims upon her, but only asked for the right to make claims. Other young men from time to time in her two years' experience had not been so careful in their treatment of her; that was why she liked Francis better than any of those who had shown their admiration of her. And yet he had troubled her, with his quiet direct speech and his obvious longing for her, although she liked him so much, and had thought that in time she might give him what he wanted. Yes, she had thought she liked him well enough for that. She knew him; he was nice all through; they had much in common; they would never quarrel; he would never let her down. All that she had intended to ask her father was whether it was fair to Francis to keep him waiting, say for another year; or whether, if she did that, it was to be the engagement or the marriage that was to be thus postponed. But the question had been answered without having been asked. She did not want to marry him now, and she did not want to look forward to a future in which she might want to marry him. There was still the idea in her mind that if he asked her again, by and by, she might accept him; but for the present all she wanted was to be free, and not to have it hanging over her. So she would refuse him, definitely; what should happen in the future could be left to itself.
Oh, how nice it was to live this quiet happy country life, and to know that it would go on, at least as far as she cared to look ahead! She had the companionship in it that she liked best in the world; she had everything to make her happy. And she was completely happy as she dressed herself, more carefully than before, though a trifle languid from the early beginning she had made of the day.
A message was sent over to the Estate Office to ask Worthing if he could come up as soon as possible in the morning. He came up at about half-past ten, and brought with him a young man who had arrived the day before to study land agency with him as his pupil.
"Maurice Bradby," he introduced him all round. "He's going to live with me for a bit if we find we get on well together, and learn all I can teach him. I thought I'd bring him up and introduce him. If I die suddenly in the night—as long as I don't do it before he's learnt his job—he'd be a useful man to take my place."
Bradby was a quiet-mannered rather shy young man of about five and twenty. He was tall and somewhat loose-limbed, but with a look of activity about him. He had a lot of dark hair, not very carefully brushed, and was dressed in Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, conspicuous neither in style nor pattern. He fell to Barbara's lot to entertain, as Caroline was too interested in the quest upon which they set across the park to leave the company of her father and Worthing. Barbara found him nice, but uninteresting. She had to support most of the conversation herself, and had almost exhausted her topics before they came to the stream in the woods which Worthing thought might be diverted into the rock-garden. Thereafter the young man fell into the background, but showed himself useful on the return journey in helping to gauge the slopes down which the water could best be led, and made one suggestion, rather diffidently, which Worthing accepted in preference to his own. Grafton said a few friendly words to him, and asked him to come and play lawn tennis in the afternoon, which invitation he gratefully but diffidently accepted.