Now what did he mean?
In spite of his caring, genuinely, was he going to keep his love guessing a little longer?
"Do you think," he said teasingly to me, "that I ought to go off and bother her with this—er—on the nail? In the middle of whatever job she's on? I don't knew where she is?"
He was answered—as he deserved.
Not by me!
It was that "reserved man," Ivor the shepherd, reputed to speak only his own language, who suddenly took us both aback.
Lifting his head from his shearing, the Welshman put in, in his pleasant up-and-down accent, "You looking for that other lady, sir? Miss Weare? I do think it is in the kitchen!"
Here was a bit of a shock.
The young Colonel and I had been chatting so freely, so confidentially! Imagining ourselves quite uncomprehended, we had literally forgotten the presence of the silent, blue-jacketed Welsh shepherd, who knelt there busily shearing, while one of us turned the wheel and both of us talked.... How we had talked, to be sure!
And Ivor had not only heard; he had followed the conversation!