“Mr Dorrien! That’s rude.”
“Excessively. But in evoking the latent barbarian, for whom you just now expressed—er—a flattering partiality—you have once more provided yourself with further amusement.”
Her only answer is a merry laugh, and for a few minutes neither speak. The whirr of a reaping machine—for the early harvest has already begun—and the sound of reapers’ voices is borne up from the valley, with now and then the barking of a farmhouse dog. The rallying note of a covey of scattered partridges, the distant cawing of rooks, and the hum of bees gathering their stores from the cells of the blossoming heather, all blend into a luxurious harmony, well in keeping with the still witchery of the waning afternoon. They are outside the world, for the time being, these two—away in a cloudland of their own, bounded by the purple heather around and the sapphire sea below, the ordinary considerations of mere prosaic, everyday life as far removed as the distant sights and sounds in the valley beneath. Stay, though. One of them cannot altogether shut out these obtrusive considerations. Roland, cool and cynical beyond his years, cannot forget that the brightest picture has its reverse side, and that there will be a morrow to this cloudless day of radiance and of love.
He has striven to cherish a vague and desperate hope that something may occur tending to smooth matters—yet it is hardly likely. That unlucky stay at Ardleigh—how far back it looked now—seemed somehow to have committed him to the fulfilment of his father’s wish; in the latter’s eyes, that is, for he stood committed in nobody else’s. Moreover, as General Dorrien’s hints on the subject grew plainer, so did his animosity towards the Ingelows increase, and this to such a pitch that more than once a terrible rupture was imminent, as Roland found himself compelled to listen to his father’s violent and unreasoning tirades. Still, he managed to conceal his feelings. But every hour confirmed him in the certainty that the day he decisively announced his intention of running counter to his father’s cherished scheme, that day would see him disinherited.
And now a sweet, serious look has come over Olive’s face, and it seems as if the bright, merry-hearted girl had been changed, all in a minute, into a tender, thoughtful, loving woman, who knew the world and its sorrows well.
“Darling?” she exclaims softly. “There is something I want to say to you, and I don’t quite know how to say it; however, I must try. I have been thinking so much lately whether you are not making a great mistake—whether I have any right to let you risk your future, whether it would not have been much better for you had we never met. Wait—don’t interrupt—let me say all, it’s difficult enough, Heaven knows. Why should you imperil your interests and perhaps be for ever separated from others you love—and all for me? Why should I bring sorrow upon you? Roland, darling, think well of what I say. Remember it is not too late now. The day may come when you will look back upon this sweet—this beautiful time”—a quiver in her voice—“with nothing but bitterness. What then?”
Has her love for him at its climax given her a sudden and magical insight into the future? Is the time coming when he will remember her prophetic words—but their fulfilment, it may be, in a different sense to that in which they are uttered?
“What then?” is the vehement reply. “Only this, that—that”—(the strong, cool-headed man finds himself helplessly stuttering)—“that this understanding of ours—delicious as it is to have it all to ourselves—must become public property to-morrow. You must never be in a position to say such things to me again.”
“Oh, my darling! I am only thinking of you and your happiness.” Then, with a warm rush of feeling: “Can such a day as this ever come again in a lifetime? It is very foolish of me, but I have a presentiment that there is trouble before us, and that even now it would be better for you had we never met. I want you to do nothing in a hurry. Better to wait—to go on as we are—than to risk your prospects for me.”
He finds no great difficulty in reassuring her as they sit there in their golden lotus-dream, with all the glories of earth and air spreading around them. The busy world lies far beneath; here, silence and the evensong of birds, and the flood of dazzling sheen on the purple sea, as the sun dips down nearer and nearer to his liquid bed. Just then, in silvery chimes, distant yet clear, the bells of Wandsborough steeple ring out the Angelus.