Flushed with excitement, laughing, chattering like old friends, lady and squire were having the time of their lives. They were, certainly, wonderfully matched. If Jill was a picture, so was the boy. His gravity was gone. The fine, frank face was fairly alight with happiness, the brown eyes dancing, the strong white teeth flashing merriment. From being good-looking, he had become most handsome. If he was to find the trick of Jill's heart, she had laid a pink finger upon the catch of his charm.
For a moment we stood marvelling….
Then Jill saw us with the tail of her eye.
"I say," she cried, twittering, "he's going to teach me to drive. He's coming to lunch to-morrow, and then we're going along the Morlaas road, because that'll be quiet."
As Adèle and Jonah emerged from the gateway—
"You can't have the Morlaas road to-morrow," said Berry, "because I've got it. I'm going to practise reversing through goats. It's all arranged. Five million of the best new-laid goats are to be in line of troop columns two kilometres south of the 'L' of a 'ill by three o'clock."
Jill addressed her companion.
"We'll go another way," she said. "I don't suppose he's really going there, but, if he did…. Well, when he says he's going backwards on purpose, we always get out of the car."
The naïveté with which this unconsciously scathing criticism was phrased and uttered trebled its poignancy.
Berry collapsed amid a roar of laughter.