“My farm is a mystery to me,” said the lady, stroking her fingers.
“Some day you must really take me to see it. It must be like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, with a chorus of agitated employers. How is it that I have escaped? Why have I never been summoned to milk the cows, or flay the pigs, or drive the young bullocks to the pasture?”
He looked at her with astonishingly blue eyes—the only dry things he had about him. He could not see into her: she would have puzzled an older and clever man. He may have seen round her.
“A thing of beauty you are not. But I sometimes think you are a joy for ever.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, you understand right enough,” she exclaimed irritably, and then smiled, for he was conceited, and did not like being told that he was not a thing of beauty. “Large and steady feet,” she continued, “have this disadvantage—you can knock down a man, but you will never knock down a woman.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not likely—”
“Oh, never mind—never, never mind. I was being funny. I repent. Tell me about the sheep. Why did you go with them?”
“I did tell you. I had to.”
“But why?”