“I am sure of it,” he declared. “I am only taking the privilege of every man who is honest, in telling the truth to the girl whom he prefers to any one else in the world.”
“You are an ardent lover, Mr. Pratt,” she scoffed.
“If I don’t say any more,” he retorted, “it is because you paralyse me. You won’t let me speak.”
“And I don’t intend to,” she answered coldly. “If you wish to retain any measure of my friendship at all, you will keep your personal feelings with regard to me to yourself.”
Jacob for a moment cursed life, cursed himself, his nervousness, and the whole situation. A little breeze came stealing down the hillside, bringing with it an odour of new-mown hay, of honeysuckle and wild roses from the flower-wreathed hedges. The girl lifted her head and her expression softened.
“It is a wonderful country, this,” she admitted. “You are to be congratulated upon having discovered it, Mr. Pratt. We ought to consider ourselves very fortunate, my mother and I, in having such a pleasant home.”
“It isn’t half good enough for you,” he declared bluntly.
She treated him to one of her sudden vagaries. All the discontent seemed to fade in a moment from her face. Her eyes laughed into his, her mouth softened into a most attractive curve.
“Some day,” she said, as she turned away, “I may find my palace, but I don’t think that you will be the landlord, Mr. Pratt.—Bother!”
Her ill-temper suddenly returned. A tall, elderly lady had issued from the house and was leaning over the gate. She was of a severe type of countenance, and Jacob remembered with a shiver her demeanour on his visit to the Manor House in the days of the Bultiwell prosperity. She welcomed him now, however, with a most gracious smile, and beckoned him to advance.