A wain loaded high with hay and laughing children was actually standing close against the ingress to their own peninsula. The mellow sun of afternoon was lending a richer quality of colour to nutbrown cheeks and arms; was throwing long shadows across the shorn grass; was gilding the pitchforks and sparkling the gnats that danced above the patient horses. It was a scene that should have made Pauline dream with joy of her England: yet, with Guy's discontent brooding over it, she did not care for these jocund haymakers who were working through the lustred afternoon.
"Hopeless," Guy protested. "It's like Piccadilly Circus."
"Oh, Guy dear, you are absurd. It's not a bit like Piccadilly Circus."
"I don't see the use of living in the country if it's always going to be alive with people," Guy went on. "We may as well turn round. The afternoon is ruined."
When they reached the confines of Plashers Mead, he exclaimed in deeper despair:
"Pauline! I must kiss you; and, look, actually the churchyard now is crammed with people, all hovering about over the graves like ghouls. Why does everybody want to come out this afternoon?"
They landed in the orchard behind the house, and Pauline was getting ready to help Guy push the canoe across to the mill-stream, when he vowed she must come and kiss him good-night indoors.
"Of course I will; though I mustn't stay more than a minute, because I promised Mother to be back by seven."
"I don't deserve you," said Guy, standing still and looking down at her. "I've done nothing but grumble all the afternoon, and you've been an angel. Ah, but it's only because I long to kiss you."