“There are those two sparring again,” was Laura’s comment, “as usual.”
Now there was a good deal more underlying Ethel’s impatience with the shearing time than appeared on the surface. It deprived them of their usual escort on their journeyings abroad, even as she had said, and with her own particular body-guard on those occasions she found herself less and less able to dispense. And yet, as her sister had just remarked, they two were always at daggers-drawn. She had begun by cordially detesting this man, as she thought. In reality, there had been more of resentment than of dislike in the matter. She had resented his coolness, his utter indifference to her charms, his way of treating her like a spoilt child; laughing at her petulance, and turning off her most pointed shafts on an impenetrable shield of mild satire, mingled with surprised amusement. She, Ethel Brathwaite, at whose shrine, when she shone in the society of the capital, all crowded and fell down and worshipped, to be thus treated! She counted, among her sworn admirers, more than one whose name was in many mouths, who boasted much-prized decorations, well and fairly won, and yet here on the distant frontier this man, whom, in reality, no one had ever heard of, treated her with a sort of good-humoured indulgence! And in spite of it—shall we not rather say, because of it?—she was not angry with him. It was a new thing to find one who, instead of looking up at, if anything, looked down to her; and to the wilful little beauty the change was positively refreshing. Then how helpless she had been in his hands on one or two occasions—that of the storm, for instance, and the subsequent terrifying episode—and he had not been wanting. There were many men within and without the circle of her admirers whom she could snub capriciously and ruthlessly tyrannise over, but Arthur Claverton was not one of them, and this she knew full well. And now she had discovered that his society was becoming very necessary to her, and what had forced that discovery irresistibly upon her mind was the announcement, two weeks ago, of the arrival of a new character upon the stage whereon she and one other were the chief actors. Verily it seemed to Ethel as if a bomb had emanated from that harmless-looking postbag, and was destined shortly to explode in their midst.
Then had come the shearing, and, except on Sundays, from dawn till dark, Mr Brathwaite’s two lieutenants found the whole of their time taken up. In the middle of the day they would come in, by turns, to get their dinners, but it was a case of off again directly after. No more long rides home in the twilight, or quiet strolls in the sunny afternoon, at least not for some time to come, and then—another would have appeared on the scene, thought Ethel, with a dire presentiment that those times which now she looked back on with a sinking kind of regret would never come round again. Will it be better for her—for both of them—if they do not? We shall see.
She is looking bewitchingly pretty to-night as she sits throwing her bright shafts of laughter and mockery at those around, and at Claverton in particular—at the latter, indeed, to such an extent as to call forth Laura’s remark. But a very close observer might have detected a kind of latent wistfulness beneath the brilliant, lively manner, and only then if he had specially looked for it.
“So you have been trying your hand at shearing, I hear, Mr Claverton?” she said.
“I have.”
“How did you get on, and how did you like it?” asked Laura.
“Hicks will best tell you how I got on. As for liking it, the occupation would be a wholly delightful one had a beneficent Providence but seen fit to arrange the small of one’s back upon hinges. By the way, Armitage wasn’t here to-day, was he? We could have sworn we heard that laugh of his; couldn’t we, Hicks?”
“No; he hasn’t been here—and a good thing too,” rejoined Mr Brathwaite. “He’d only have got playing the fool, or something. He carries that habit of his rather far at times. You heard what he did over at Naylor’s the year before last?”
“No. What was it?”