"No?" A quick sigh escaped her; her look came back to him, and she smiled. "Well, I am now anyway; and that's the one thing that hasn't altered or grown old—the one thing that never could."
"Ah, dear!" said old Jeffcott. "What a pity now as you couldn't take up with young Mr. Eversley or that Mr. Preston over the way, or—or—any of them young gents with a bit of property as might be judged suitable!"
Sylvia's laugh rang through the vinery, a gay, infectious laugh.
"Oh, really, Jeffcott! You talk as if I had only got to drop my handkerchief for the whole countryside to rush to pick it up! I'm not going to take up with anyone, unless it's Mr. Guy Ranger. You don't seem to realize that we've been engaged all this time."
"Ah!" said old Jeffcott, looking sardonic. "And you not met for five years! Do you ever wonder to yourself what sort of a man he may be after five years, Miss Sylvia? It's a long time for a young man to keep in love at a distance. It's a very long time."
"It's a long time for both of us," said Sylvia. "But it hasn't altered us in that respect."
"It's been a longer time for him than it has for you," said
Jeffcott shrewdly. "I'll warrant he's lived every minute of it.
He's the sort that would."
Sylvia's wide brows drew together in a little frown. She had caught the note of warning in the old man's words, and she did not understand it.
"What do you mean, Jeffcott?" she said, with a touch of sharpness.
But Jeffcott backed out of the vinery and out of the discussion at the same moment. "You'll know what I mean one day, Miss Sylvia," he said darkly, "when you're married."