"Oh, don't remind me of the years before we met," said Guy. "I hate them all. No, I don't," he exclaimed in swift penitence. "I love them all. Hurry, darling girl, or we shall miss him."
Pauline's eyes were troubled by a question, behind which lurked a fleeting alarm.
"Kiss me," she murmured. "I was horrid."
A kind of austerity informed their kiss of reconciliation, an austerity that suited the sky of impending rain under which they were standing in the light of the last wan sunbeam. Then they hurried to the churchyard where in the porch the Rector was looking vaguely round for the company he expected.
"Lucky my friend Lorteti came out yesterday. This rain will ruin him. You must take Guy to see that iris, my dear. Fancy, twenty-one to-day, dear me! dear me! most remarkable!"
Pauline danced with delight behind the Rector's back.
"He thinks I'm twenty-one," she whispered. "Oh, Guy, isn't he sweet? And he called you Guy. Oh, Francis," she cried. "Do let me kiss you."
There was a short debate on the probability of the rain's coming before breakfast was done, but it was decided, thanks to Birdwood's optimism, to accept the risk of interruption by sitting down outside. The table was on the lawn, Pauline's presents lying in a heap at the head. As one by one she opened the packets, everybody stood round her, not merely her mother and father and sisters and Guy, but also Birdwood and elderly Janet and Mrs. Unger the cook and Polly who helped Mrs. Unger.
"Oh, I'm so excited," said Pauline. "Oh, I do hope it won't rain. Oh, thank you, Mrs. Unger. What a beautiful frame!"
"I hope yaw'll find someone to put in it, miss," said Mrs. Unger with a glance of stately admiration toward her present and a triumphant side look at Janet, who after many years' superintendence of Pauline's white fastness had brought her bunches of lavender and woodruff tied up with ribbons. All the presents were now undone, among them Guy's green volume, a paste buckle from Margaret, a piece of old embroidery from Monica and from Richard in India a pair of carved bellows, at the prodigal ingenuity of whose pattern Margaret looked a little peevish. When all the other presents had been examined, Birdwood stepped forward and with the air of a conjuror produced from under his coat a pot of rose-coloured sweet-peas that exactly matched the frail hue of Pauline's cheeks.