“Are you looking for someone?”
“By Jove!” cried back a voice in swift and hearty response. “So you’re there, are you? I thought I couldn’t be wrong—through a stream and past a barn, and down a hill—what damnable hills they are too in this part of the world! How on earth does one get up there?”
Quite concisely and without agitation she made reply. “One usually goes to the bottom of the hill, opens a gate and walks up on the other side.”
“Oh, that’s too much to ask,” protested the voice below her. “Isn’t there some hole where one can get through?”
“If one doesn’t mind spoiling one’s clothes,” said Frances.
“Oh, damn the clothes—this infernal mud too for that matter! Here goes!”
There followed sounds of a leap and a scramble—a violent shaking of the nut-trees and brambles that composed the hedge—and finally a man’s face, laughing and triumphant, appeared above the confusion.
“By gad,” he said, “you look as if you were on a throne!”
She smiled at him, without rising. “It is quite a comfortable perch. I come here every day. In fact,” she indicated the sketching-block by her side. “This is how I amuse myself.”
He came to her, carrying a trail of honeysuckle which he laid at her feet. “May I share the throne?” he said.