"How can I?" she says, with a slow lifting of her brows. "Who will give anybody any tea, if I go away from this? And—" Here she pauses, and her eyes fix themselves upon a break in the belt of firs, low down, at the end of the lawn. "Ah," she says, with a swift blush, "you see I shall be wanted at my post for a little while longer, because—here is Mr. Gower, at last!"
The "at last" is intolerably flattering, though it is a question if the new comer hears it. He is crossing over the soft grass; his hat is in his hand; his eyes dark and smiling. He looks glad, expectant, happy.
"What superfluous surprise," says Roger to Dulce, with even a broader sneer than his last. "He always is here, isn't he!"
"Yes; isn't it good of him to come," says Miss Blount, with a suspicious dulness—Stephen has not yet come quite close to them. "We are always so wretchedly stupid here, and he is so charming, and so good to look at, and always in such a perfect temper!" As she finishes her sentence she turns her large eyes full on her fiancé.
Roger, muttering something untranslatable between his teeth, moves away, and then Gower comes up, and Dulce gives him her hand and her prettiest smile, and presently he sinks upon the grass at her feet, and lies there in a graceful position that enables him to gaze without trouble upon her piquante face. He is undeniably handsome, and is very clean-limbed, and has something peculiar about his smile that takes women as a rule.
"How d'ye do?" he says to Roger presently, when that young man comes within range, bestowing upon him a little nod. Whereon Roger says the same to him in a tone of the utmost bonhommie, which, if hypocritical, is certainly very well done, after which conversation once more flows smoothly onwards.
"What were you doing all day?" asks Dulce of the knight at her feet, throwing even kinder feeling than usual into her tone, as she becomes aware that Roger's eyes are fixed upon her.
"Wishing myself here," replies Gower, with a readiness that bespeaks truth.
"What a simple thing to say," murmurs Dulce, with a half-smile, glancing at him from under her long lashes. "But how difficult to believe. After all," with a wilful touch of coquetry, "I don't believe you ever do mean anything you say."
"Don't you," says Gower, with an eagerness that might be born of either passion or amusement. "You wrong me then. And some day—some day, perhaps, I shall be able to prove to you that what I say I mean." Then, probably, the recollection of many things comes to him, and the quick, warm light dies out of his eyes, and it is with an utter change of tone and manner he speaks next.