"Is it not delicious here?" suggests Mr. Luttrell, who can scarcely be called energetic, and who finds it a difficult matter to grow enthusiastic over landscapes when oppressed by a broiling sun.
"What! tired already?" says Molly, with fine disregard of subterfuge.
"No, oh, no," weakly.
"But you are," reproachfully. "You are quite done up. Why, what would you do if you were ordered on a long day's march?"
"I dare say I should survive it," says Tedcastle, shortly, who is rather offended at her putting it in this light.
"Well, perhaps you might; but you certainly would have nothing to boast of. Now, look at me: I am as fresh as when we started." And in truth, as she stands before him, in her sky-blue gown, he sees she is as cool and bright and unruffled as when they left the house three-quarters of an hour ago. "Well," with a resigned sigh that speaks of disappointment, "stay here until I run up,—I love the place,—and I will join you afterward."
"Not I!" indignantly. "I'm good yet for so much exertion, and I don't believe I could exist without you for so long. 'Call, and I follow—I follow,' even though 'I die,'" he adds to himself, in a tone of melancholy.
Up the short but steep hill they toil in silence. Halfway Miss Massereene pauses, either to recover breath or to give encouragement.
"On the top there is always a breeze," she says, in the voice one adopts when determined to impress upon the listener what one's own heart knows to be doubtful.
"Is there?" says Luttrell, gloomily, and with much disbelief.