"I am never hungry," explained Jeanie. She kissed him and then drew herself gently from him, sitting down by his side with innate dignity. "Have you been riding all day?" she asked. "Isn't Pompey tired?"
"Caesar and Pompey are both dead beat," said Piers. "And I—" he looked deliberately at Avery, "—am as fresh as when I started."
Again, as it were in response to that look, her eyelids fluttered; but she did not raise them. Again the colour started and died in her cheeks.
"Have you had anything to eat?" she asked.
"Nothing," said Piers.
He took the cup she offered him, and drained it. There was a fitful gleam in his dark eyes as of a red, smouldering fire.
But Jeanie's soft voice intervening dispelled it. "How very hungry you must be!" she said in a motherly tone. "Will bread and butter and cake be enough for you?"
"Quite enough," said Piers. "Like you, Jeanie, I am not hungry." He handed back his cup to be filled again. "But I have a lively thirst," he said.
"It has been so hot to-day," observed Avery.
"It is never too hot for me," he rejoined. "Hullo! Who's that?"