These ruminations, however long in the telling, did not in reality outlast a moment's space. It was all very clear to him now, and his blood pulsed quickly.
"If you tell me so, I must indeed be wrong," he answered. "And let me add," he continued, impetuously, "it is a boon to know it."
To his face a flush had come, and his eyes were eager. He had never been accounted anything else than good-looking, but now he was attractive as well.
"You will not be in haste to go, then?"
"In haste to go—" His face completed the sentence. "Tell her from me," he was about to say, when from the girl's loosening fingers the basket fell; she drooped like a flower, her eyes half closed, and he had but the time to hold out his arm when she sank unconscious on it.
The grass seemed an inviting couch, and very gently he let her from him. "It is the heat," he reflected, and kneeling at her side he took her small hand and beat it with his own. "What shall I do?" he wondered. Her cheeks were colorless, though her lips were red, and as, in his perplexity, he gazed at them, he saw them move. "Kiss me," they seemed to say. Her eyes opened and she smiled.
And still he stared. "Merciful heaven!" he thought; "she thinks I am in love with her;" and feigning that the invitation had passed unheard he sprang to his feet.
"Help me," she murmured, smiling still; and as he bent again to aid her, before him in the coppice stood Mrs. Lyeth. Already the girl was on her feet. Whether she had been aware of Mrs. Lyeth's approach, who shall say? She patted out a rumpled fold of her frock, and picking the basket up, glanced over at her father's choice.
"I almost fell," she announced. "Mr. Ennever was gallant enough to prevent me."
In single file all three then returned to tiffin at the bungalow.