“And I will keep single for yours.”
CHAPTER XIV.
Ferdinand, in obedience to the call of the political situation, had absented himself from Heydon Hay for a week or two. The Liberals had put into the field a stronger man than he had expected to encounter, and there was a sudden awakening in the constitutional camp. He had to go the rounds and visit his bandsmen, and without being particularly alert himself to see that everybody else was on the qui vive. The constitutional candidate was, perhaps, as little interested in the coming strife as any man in the limits of the constituency, but he had allowed himself to be entered for the race, and was bound to a pretence of warmth even if he could not feel it. Ruth was not much in his mind while he was away, but when he came back again he found time once more hanging heavy on his hands; and being greeted by her when he went to listen to the quartette party precisely as he had been from the first, he determined more than ever to start a pronounced flirtation with the haughty little hussy, and bring her to a proper sense of her position. So he went early to church afoot on Sunday morning, leaving his lordship to follow alone in his carriage, and he chatted affably with the members of the little crowd that lingered about the lich-gate and the porch, and there awaited Ruth's coming.
Fuller was rather impressed with the young man's civility as a general thing, being open to the territorial sentiment, and was proud to be singled out from the rest by the Earl of Barfield's visitor, and publicly talked to on terms of apparent equality. And Ruth, who accompanied her father, was on this particular morning not quite what she had been hitherto. “When Ferdinand raised his hat and proffered her his hand she blushed, and her eyes held a singular uncertainty he had never before remarked in them. He could even feel in the few brief seconds for which her hand lay in his own that it trembled slightly. Aha! She began to awake, then. The young Ferdinand plumed himself and spread himself for her vision. The old man, not unwilling that his neighbors should remark him in familiar intercourse with the great of the land, lingered at the porch, and for once Ruth did not desert his side and run into the church alone.
“Upon my word,” said Ferdinand, “there is something in the air of Heydon Hay, Mr. Fuller, which would seem to be unusually favorable to the growth of feminine charms. May I congratulate Miss Ruth upon her aspect this morning?”
He meant the little thing no harm. He could compliment her in her father's presence as easily as out of it, and perhaps with a better conscience. Whensoever loosed from the string the arrow of compliment would find its mark. Besides, the very carelessness of his appreciation would help its force. He might be a little kinder and more confidential later on.
“Well, sir,” said Fuller, with a chuckle, “her's bound to look her best just now.”
“Father,” said Ruth, with an amazingly sudden vivacity, “I want to speak to you. Excuse us, Mr. De Blacquaire.”
Her face was of the color of the rose from brow to chin, and her eyes were as shy as ever in spite of her vivacity. They met Ferdinand's smiling, conquering glance for a moment, and no more. He raised his hat and withdrew. He had shot his arrow, and had hit the white. He could afford to retire contented for the moment, and he did so. But by-and-by that young Gold, who played first fiddle in the quartette, came up with his auburn mane, with his fiddle tucked under his arm, and stopped to talk with Ruth and Fuller. Ferdinand, exchanging a friendly word or two with a doubtful voter, watched with interest. She was blushing still, and still surveying the ground, and marking patterns on it with the toe of her pretty little boot—conscious of his glance, the puss, no doubt, and was posing a little for his admiration.