Side by side we walked through the park, and I could think of nothing to say to her, nothing that I dared say. With Lady Olive there would have been a thousand light nothings to bandy backwards and forwards, but what man living would have dared to speak them to Maud Devereux? Not I, at any rate.
Once she spoke; carelessly as though for the sake of speaking.
"What spell holds Mr. Arbuthnot silent so long? A penny for your thoughts!" and I answered thoughtlessly.
"They are worth more, Miss Devereux, for they are of you. I was thinking that this was the first time I had walked alone with you."
"I am not Lady Olive," she said, coldly. "Be so good, Mr. Arbuthnot, as to reserve such speech for her."
She quickened her pace a little, and I could have bitten my tongue out for my folly. But she was not angry for long, for at the gate which led from the park into the ground she paused.
Devereux Court, with its lofty battlements and huge stacks of chimneys, towered above us—every window a burnished sheet of red fire, for the setting sun was lingering around it, and bathing it with its last parting rays as though loth to go.
"What a grand old place it is!" I said, half to myself; "I shall be sorry to leave it."
She turned round quickly, and there was actually a shade of interest in her tone.
"You are not thinking of going away, are you, Mr. Arbuthnot? I thought you got on so well with my uncle."