"Perhaps you were going to do something else," said she.
"Well, as a matter of fact, I was going to take old Peverell's gun round by the wood. It's alive with rabbits. He says they're spoiling his mangolds."
"All right, my dear. I'll see you at supper-time."
She drove the cows into the shed. One by one they filed into their accustomed stalls. Mechanically she fastened the chains about their necks and took down her stool and brought her pail. Leaning her cheek as so many times she had done against the first warm flank, she looked up. The setting sun was shining through the window.
V
This and many other such conversations revealed in time to Mary that which she had both known and feared. John was changing. Every fresh occasion of their meeting he was altered a little more. The possessive passion, inherent in the very nature of his sex, was stirring in him. Gradually but inevitably they were wakening in him the pride of inheritance. Less and less did it seem to her he was creating his own.
It was all too subtle to arrest, too elusive to oppose. Still, as always, he had his charm. Both Peverell and his wife found him altered, it was true, but improved.
"There be gettin' the grand manner of the squire about 'en," Peverell said one day when he went back to Somerset before returning to Oxford. "How many acres is it coming to 'en? Two thousand! Well! A young man needs his head set right way on to let none o' that go wastin'."
Not even did Mary let Mrs. Peverell see the wound she had. Scarcely herself did she realize how deep it had gone. But more than in his manner and the things he said, it was in his attitude to Lucy she was made most conscious of his change.
During his first holidays, they had played together as though no difference had entered their lives to separate them. The next time they were more reserved. A shyness had come over them which partly Mary justified to herself, ascribing it to that awkwardness of the schoolboy who, if he is not playing some manly game or doing some manly thing, is ever ready to fear the accusation of ridiculousness.