"I know a great deal about her," declared young Colonel Fielding, impressively. "Not about this girl personally, perhaps. But about her kind."
He got up off the sack with an air of "that finishes it."
Deeply interested, since this was Dick Holiday's pal speaking of Dick Holiday's lady-love, I asked: "What do you mean by 'her kind'?"
"I'll tell you some day," the young man promised me, getting into his Burberry again. "I could tell you—er—yards! And I will. Only I am afraid there isn't time just now. I promised to meet old Dick at the bridge at eleven, by Jove. I must tear myself away. Good-bye. I say, I am glad we had this—er—little talk."
"Little talk" was good! His tongue had been going at least as fast as the shearing-wheel, or as the clipping-knife in Ivor's hand.
As he nodded to the shepherd and saluted me, I said, in a tone more cheerily friendly than I'd ever thought I should use to him, "Wait, wait; do stop a minute! This is all very well, Colonel Fielding, but when are you going to have that other little talk?"
"Which other?" he asked, standing, a graceful black silhouette, in the opening of the shearing-shed.
"Oh, you know! What a young Pretender you are, always!" I cried, half laughing. "I mean when are you going to speak about this, to her?"
He looked down, tilting his head sideways in a characteristic pose he had, lashes down, a gleam of small white teeth showing between the parted lips under the Avenue-gold smudge that he called a moustache. Oh, he was much too like a coloured advertisement for Burberry's! Still, it was Elizabeth's choice. I was thankful that she was going to be happy with it. Only, when?
He said, laughing, "What a staunch little friend you are to her! You even go as far as to—er—ask people their 'intentions' about her.... Miss Matthews, you'll be the first person we shall tell!"