But he dared not stay. Those few words of dismissal were too cutting for him to try any more entreaties. He scrambled through the hedge, rather anxious that she should see he was hurting himself in his eagerness to obey her. But she never looked round. She made her way back to her cottage more quietly, without even shedding any more tears. She was too much excited for that. But, when she was once more in her little sitting-room, she gave way, threw herself on the floor by the sofa, and cried until she could scarcely see. She was so proud, so haughtily reserved to men, that this outrage to her dignity and self-respect wounded her far more deeply than it would have done an ordinary girl.
“He would not have dared if I hadn’t been ‘only a governess,’” she thought bitterly.
In the meantime Harry had slunk home to the Grange, where the first person he met was George.
“By Jove, Harry, I didn’t think you had it in you!” was his greeting.
“What the deuce do you mean?”
“Nothing but what is complimentary on this occasion. Here are your five pounds, fairly won.”
He took out his pocket-book, and handed a note leisurely to his brother, who crumpled it in his hand and tossed it into a flower-bed.
“What! Have you suddenly grown above filthy lucre? Very well, I’ll take it back again;” and George was stooping over a geranium to pick it up when his brother brought his hand roughly down upon his shoulder.
“What do you mean by this tomfoolery?”
“Well, to be frank, I watched your interview, quite by accident, and saw you win your bet.”