"I don't care for any tea, thanks; but I do enjoy this shade," she says almost reluctantly; and still indifferent to a degree that might be called rude, she lets him find a seat on the low bough of one of the ash-trees, well out of reach of the sunshine.
He does not offer to sit down beside her, though there is plenty of room.
With his shoulder against a tree and his hat well pulled over his eyes he stands and talks in his easy, half-grave, half-mocking way, that, in spite of herself, the girl finds charming.
He does not appear to be in the least anxious to interest or amuse her; yet he does both. Before long she is laughing as she has not laughed for weeks—a pretty color has come into her cheeks, her eyes are sparkling. No wonder the man looking at her feels his heart thrill!
If ever he thought that he could go away and leave this willful Irish girl, whose very willfulness has caught and chained him, he knows now that the thought was a vain one.
She is the one woman in the world for him, her love the one thing needful to crown his life. Other women may be fairer, other women may be ready to give him love where this girl gives him but a mocking tolerance; but no other woman can ever be to him what she is.
Of love and lovers there is no thought in Honor's head this sunny afternoon. She thinks her cousin has improved, that he has even grown quite tolerable, and there it ends, so far as she is concerned.
On their way back to the house they pass Launce and Mrs. Dundas walking very close together, and talking seriously.
Honor looks at her coldly. She does not like the woman. Her bold eyes, her lithe figure, in its French-cut gown, the very grace and chic that have made Kate Dundas the belle of the county jar upon Honor.
"I am very sorry Launce has gone so far in that quarter," her companion says, when they are well out of ear-shot. "These fascinating women are always more or less dangerous."