The girl did not answer; but presently, without a word, she let her head droop a little away, so that the soft curve of her cheek was surrendered to him. And rapturously, reverently, while the birds sang about, and the chiming of the water came up to them in their warm high covert, he set the signature of his fealty on that lovely tablet.
It was the ecstatic moment of Brion’s life, never forgotten and never surpassed—innocence fulfilling beauty and beauty innocence, trustfully, confidingly. So to such sexless kisses angels love—the flowers that ask no fruit.
Now they sat on in silence, shy, since the pledge had been sought and yielded. Yet there seemed no thought of strangeness in it all, nor did it appear to them odd that they should be so intimate on such short acquaintance. Why should it? Do lambs meeting in the same meadow seek introductions? Reserve only comes with the consciousness of sex; and with that the happy friendliness of youth is forborne for ever.
Presently they parted, with due precautions taken against chance detection. It was not, with Brion, that he was actuated in this by any sentiment of shame or guilt, for he felt none; but that he feared for a rude end being put to his idyll. Whatever the circumstances of his pretty lady’s life—and, being faithful to his promise, he would not inquire into them, much as he longed to comfort her implied unhappiness—he could not suppose for a moment that his acquaintance with her would, if discovered, be anything but wrathfully discountenanced by her father? And the reference to his Uncle had not helped to reassure him in that respect. It troubled him; but his pride as much as his love. Something in his blood was already resenting this assumed arrogance of superiority by a rich City parvenu over a man of his Uncle’s distinction. And this Sir John, moreover, according to Clerivault, was a rogue: an indubitable rogue he must be, indeed, to treat his own child so. Well, he, Brion, need have no scruples about circumventing such a man. He told himself so, swelling over a grievance which had become suddenly personal. If it was to be war between the families, Sir John should come to learn, maybe, the value of hostages in a question of accommodation. The state of dictatorial righteousness into which the young bashaw worked himself was sufficiently diverting.
But it quickly yielded to another sentiment. After all, Joan was the rogue-knight’s daughter—which must seem to argue that the father could not be wholly base. How came it that so coarse a stock could yield so sweet a blossom? What a darling she was, and how great his good fortune in having lighted on her in his dreary life. She had transformed all that, converting his desert at a touch into a garden of Eden. Now the very loneliness of the place was beautiful, since it ensured their uninterrupted converse. As he went over the hill, his brain seeming wrapt in a luminous mist, he felt very happy, with a pure good happiness. Only one thing lingered in his mind to shadow and disturb it. Why had Sir John likened him to that bird?
CHAPTER XI.
TWO’S COMPANY
Motionless as the trunk against which he leaned, Brion stood waiting in the ilex grove. It was a still misty morning, with a blurr of sun in the East, like a lamp burning behind a ground glass window, and for every reason he felt it more reassuring to address his face doggedly in that direction than towards the glooms which lay behind his back. It was gratifying to know that his resolution, a puissant force impelling it, had conquered those glooms, and to practical effect; still, the point gained, there seemed no present reason for presuming on the providence which had so far favoured him. He preferred to wait, facing the light, near the fringe of the wood for the appointment which had brought him there.
But, as the hour struck and passed, some nervous irritation would affect him. He was strung to the adventure, but he wanted it grappled and done with. Why did she not come? All girls and women seemed to regard time as a jest. It had been the same with Mrs Angell: he had never known her once in all his life punctual to an engagement.
At last, a quarter of an hour late, she appeared. He heard the soft patter of Gritty’s hoofs on the turf outside, and the pair drew into sight. Even seen so, her figure dusk against the light, his mistress brought to Brion’s heart the thrill of delighted surprise she for ever conveyed. He never saw her afresh but she seemed a new thing to him, lovelier and more winsome than when last encountered. And now she was new in fact, at least as regarded her habit. Like the young spirit of the Spring she came to him all in tender green, an orchard sweetness in her face, and her eyes were the first speedwells of the year. A hood fell loosely back from her fair head, as its sheath slips from a blossom, and her feet gave life to the barren carpet of dead leaves, greening it where they fell. So she came to him, moving with the unhurried gladness that was her way, and he had a hard ado to temper his welcome with even the show of severity her lateness called for. He had not, for precaution’s sake, gone to meet her, but had waited while she tethered the little ass to a branch on the outskirts of the grove; and now he stood erect, as she greeted him in her soft voice, and with half eager, half fearful eyes:—
‘Have you in truth found a way, Brion?’