“Why, of course, if you’d rather us did; an’ you can call me ‘Chris’ if you mind to,” she said, laughing. “’T is strange you took sides against your brother somehow to me.”
“I haven’t—I didn’t—except in the matter of Phoebe. He was wrong there, and I told him so,—”
He meant to end the sentence with the other’s name, only the word stuck in his throat; but “Miss Blanchard” he would not say, after her permission, so left a gap.
“He’ll not forgive ’e that in a hurry.”
“Not readily, but some day, I hope. Now I must really go—wasting your precious time like this; and I do hope you may read the book.”
“That Will may?”
“No—yes—both of you, in fact. And I’ll come to know whether you liked it. Might I?”
“Whether Will liked it?”
She nodded and laughed, then the door hid her; while Martin Grimbal went his way treading upon air. Those labourers whom he met received from him such a “Good evening!” that the small parties, dropping back on Chagford from their outlying toil, grinned inquiringly, they hardly knew at what.
Meantime, Chris Blanchard reflected, and the laughter faded out of her eyes, leaving them grave and a little troubled. She was sufficiently familiar with lovers’ ways. The bold, the uncouth, the humble, and timorous were alike within her experience. She watched this kind-faced man grow hot and cold as he spoke to her, noted the admixture of temerity and fear that divided his mind and appeared in his words. She had seen his lips tremble and refuse to pronounce her name; and she rightly judged that he would possibly repeat it aloud to himself more than once before he slept that night. Chris was no flirt, and now heartily regretted her light and friendly banter upon the man’s departure. “I be a silly fule, an’ wouldn’t whisper a word of this to any but Clem,” she thought, “for it may be nothing but the nervous way of un, an’ such a chap ’s a right to seek a sight further ’n me for a wife; an’ yet they all ’pear the same, an’ act the same soft sort o’ style when they ’m like it.” Then she considered that, seeing what friendship already obtained between Clement and Martin Grimbal, it was strange the latter still went in ignorance. “Anyways, if I’m not wrong, the sooner he ’m told the better, for he’s a proper fashioned man,” she thought.