They stood to rest at a bend in the tremendous hill. Mr. Knox dabbed his brow with a red cotton handkerchief.
“This blessed mountain brings the beads to the forehead every time I come up to it,” he declared. “You’re a wonder; you hop up like a bird.”
“I’m Devonshire—born to hills.”
“You can’t have valleys without ’em.”
“That’s true. We’ve all got to take the rough with the smooth, and the steep with the level.”
“To take the rough smoothly is the whole art of living,” declared Philander, “and I thought I was pretty clever at it till I met you. But you can give us all a start and a beating. Well, this may or may not be a likely moment to come back to the all important question; but impulse guides right as often as wrong, and if I’m wrong there’s no harm done I hope. Have you had time to turn it over, or have you been too busy?”
“I owed it to you to turn it over,” she answered after a short pause. “You’ve got as much right to go on with your life as I have to go on with mine. Time don’t stand still because men and women are in two minds.”
“If you’re in two minds—”
“I don’t say that; yet I don’t deny it. I have thought about you. You’re a good chap and very restful to the nerves; and your sense, coming on the foolishness of some people, shows up in a bright light.”
“You’ve hardly seen a twinkle of it yet, Lydia. I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, or nothing like that; but with all my faults, you’d find the sense was here, and the patience.”