He was racking his brains for some means of avoiding the excursion.
“Not if I know it!” he said to himself. “She won’t get me alone again!”
But his reflection in a distant mirror caught his eye. What? Here he was, six feet tall, dressed in absolutely the latest fashion, a thorough man of the world, and yet uneasy in the presence of this sixteen-year-old country girl! “Dumpy,” he called her—stolid, ignorant, rustic, in a cheap cotton frock.
His good humor came back. He smiled down upon her kindly, all alarm gone. Let her make love to him if she liked—there was no harm in it.
They started directly after breakfast, walked mile after mile through the fields in the full glare of the hot August sun, up stony hills, through bramble-lined woodland paths, until Tommy, carrying the big lunch basket and a walking stick, and wearing a rather heavy Norfolk jacket—the only correct thing for picnics—was dazed and tired. Not Esther, though; she was as fresh and cheerful as ever.
In the course of time they reached the place predestined by her for lunching—a little clearing on the slope of the pine-covered mountain, a sort of sunny nest in the forest, where a brook ran by, rapid and cool.
When he had at last satisfied his appetite—a strangely hearty and indiscriminate one for such a man of the world—Tommy lay back against a sun-warmed stone, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the bright sky. It was nice to have Esther there, he admitted to himself. It was nice to see her, contented and blessedly quiet, sitting beside him.
He turned his head to see her better. What a round, pretty, white throat she had! And her lashes were almost dark against her cheeks. He was annoyed by a sudden great longing to kiss her again. He tried to put[Pg 35] the thought out of his mind—tried desperately; but in some inexplicable way, even as she sat there with her eyes closed and her little face so tranquil, she conveyed the fact to him that she was waiting to be kissed.
He did it, with a violence surprising to them both. She struggled half-heartedly, then settled down, close to his side, with his arm about her, and said no more. He kissed her again and again, stroked her hair, looked at her in delight. Dear, gentle, ardent little soul! Truly it was an afternoon on Olympus!
Tommy was done for now. She had awakened his innocent, primitive manhood, had aroused in him a feeling which he was too immature to appraise. He believed that he was, that he must be, in love with her. How otherwise explain his joy in kissing her, his immeasurable admiration for her charms?