In going over in her mind all that Kenyon had said to her, she could not put her finger on any actual declaration on his part; but his subtle assumption of possession, the way in which he touched her hand and looked at her over other people's heads with eyes which seemed to embrace her, seemed to her to be far more satisfactory than any conventional set of words ordinary under such circumstances. Then, too, there was that wonderful and sudden kiss on the landing stage in the shadow. Why, there was no doubt about it. She had, like Cæsar, come and seen and conquered. She was to be the Hon. Mrs. Nicholas Kenyon, daughter-in-law of Lord Shropshire, of Thrapstone-Wynyates. What a delightful surprise for father and mother, and how proud they would be of her!
Betty knew that Peter intended to make her his wife. She knew it and was happy. His very incoherence had been more eloquent to her than the well-rounded sentences of all the heroes of her favorite novels, and if he never said another word before she left, she would be satisfied. In her heart there was the sensation of one who had come to the end of a long road and now stood in a great wide open space on which the sun fell warmly and with great beauty.
Not much was said by anyone, and the question of the afternoon train which was to leave at four-thirty was consistently avoided by them all.
Breakfast over, the whole party followed Kenyon into the street, where two cars were waiting for the trip to Woodstock. They were to lunch at the old inn which stood beneath the gnarled branches of the oaks that had sheltered the Round Heads and Royalists. The first car was Kenyon's roadster, in which he placed Mrs. Guthrie, the Doctor and Graham. He had intended that Betty should sit by his side as he drove, and that Peter should take Belle in his two-seater. But Master Peter was too quick for him this time. He had touched Betty on the arm and said: "You're coming with me." And before Kenyon could frame a sentence to break up this arrangement these two were off together with the complete disregard for speed limits which was peculiar to the Oxford undergraduate. Kenyon had the honesty to say about this to himself that it was well done, but all the same he was immensely annoyed. As he drove off with Belle on the front seat he was not, for at least a mile, a very talkative companion. Belle put his silence down to the fact that she was going away that afternoon.
Along St. Giles, past the burial ground, the Roman Catholic Church, Somerville, and into the Woodstock road as far as the Radcliffe Infirmary, Peter kept the lead, and then the big car overtook him and left him behind. Graham waved his hand and shouted something which Peter didn't catch. It was probably facetious. As far as Wolvercote Peter kept in touch with the car in front, when he began to fall gradually behind. He had a plan in the back of his head.
The morning seemed to suit all that he had to say, if he found himself able to say it. The earth was warm with the sun. The hedges and trees were still in the first fresh vigor of early summer. Everywhere birds sang and were busy with their young.
Peter pulled up short at the edge of a spinney. "Let's get out of here," he said, "I want to show you a corking little bit of country." And Betty obeyed without a word. She rather liked being ordered about by this big square-shouldered person.
They didn't go far,—hardly, in fact, fifty yards from the car,—and when they came to a small opening among the beeches where bracken grew and "bread and cheese" covered the soft turf with their little yellow heads, Peter said: "Sit down; I want to speak to you."
And again Betty obeyed without a word. It was coming—she knew that it was coming—and the only thing she was afraid about was that Peter would hear the quick beat of her heart.
He laid himself full stretch at her feet, threw off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. "You know this place," he said.