"No, no, and no," she told him, bending round the stack to see his face, her hands still holding it at either side as children stand and dodge when they are playing hide-and-seek. He shot out a hand to her, but she evaded it and was off to where more bundles lay upon the stubble, and not for some time did he get another chance to speak to her. Without a word said they tacitly agreed to play this game of only meeting, hands and eyes, now and again as though by chance, she sheltering behind the oats, feeling his passion of worship, even so, as much as she could face under watching eyes. Like children they played at this game which had grown up without a word, both recognising it, and both the happier for the frail barriers and the secret exchanged by stealth before the others. At lunch, eaten on the grassy slope of the next field, he did not even sit next her, but both had to watch over themselves that they did not yield too often to the temptation of a glance that would have told as much to an onlooker as to each other.
The afternoon somehow lacked the first ecstasy of the morning, the labour suddenly became harder to unaccustomed muscles, and the girls lay in the shadows of the stooks and idled. They had time to talk among themselves while Ishmael and John-James worked on at the far end of the field. Blanche thought it rather silly and tiresome of Ishmael to keep on at it; surely he could leave that clumsy brother of his—for the first time the realisation that John-James actually was whole brother to Ishmael flashed into her mind—and wander away somewhere with her! What was the good of being the owner and master if he could not get some one else to do the work when it became a bore? So Blanche inwardly; and Ishmael, to whom it would never have occurred to begin work on a field and leave it half-done, went on steadily—stooping, gathering, binding; she could see the perpetual crouch of his figure, hardly ever straightening itself, down there against a background of green hedge and sullen grey sea.
Blanche leant up alongside her stook and Vassie sat watching her, while Judy, who had seen a wistful look on Phoebe's baby face, drew her into such superficial personal talk as she could best compass.
"When do you go back to London?" was Vassie's abrupt and not very happy opening.
"Why, I don't know … it all depends," answered Blanche, her beautiful low voice sounding very rich after Vassie's hard tones. "You've never been to London, have you, Vassie? I may call you Vassie, mayn't I?"
"I've never been further than Plymouth."
"You must come to London some day with me," said Blanche. She had no intention of spending all her days at Cloom, and she wished to win over this sulky beauty to her side. Vassie looked doubtfully at her, but began to thaw. London … it meant all of hope and the future to Vassie.
"I would dearly love to," she said. "I suppose you know it very well, like I know Penzance. I don't go even to Plymouth very often, and of course it's not London. The people are rather common. I daresay there's all sorts in London, but I suppose you know a lot of families up there?"
"A good many," said Blanche casually. She was pleased at the signs of a thaw; she was one of those women who are as eager to stand well with their own sex as with men and take as much care to ensure it.
"You would do well in London, Vassie," she went on, fixing her eyes on the girl after a habit she had, and which always gave the impression that she was talking to the only person on earth who really interested her; "you are very beautiful, you know."