Olivia made no answer to this graceful remark. She was standing close to the hedge which bounded the field on the side nearest to the village. The trees grew thickly outside, and even at five o’clock the sun was strong enough to make the shelter of the overhanging branches welcome. The devoted Fred had put into her hands a very fanciful little hay rake; but instead of amusing herself by turning over the sweet-scented hay which strewed the field all round her, she only drew the rake listlessly along the ground with an air of being a thousand miles away.
“I’m afraid I bore you,” said Fred at last, in an offended tone, finding that all his conversational efforts failed to wake the least sparkle of interest in her eyes; “I should have thought this sort of thing would have been just what you would like: wants such a lot of energy, and all that sort of thing, you know.”
“Yes,” answered Olivia, dreamingly; “it wants too much energy to be wasted on play, when one has serious things to think about.”
“Serious things!” echoed Fred, pricking up his ears, and rushing at this opening. “Yes, I’ve got a lot of serious things to think about too—one thing jolly serious. I say,” he went on, getting rather nervous, “I’m glad you take things seriously; I like a girl who can be serious.”
“Do you?” asked she rather absently. “I should have thought you liked a girl who could be lively.”
“Well, yes; I like ’em both. I mean, I like one who can be both—or, or—”
“Both who can be one, perhaps,” suggested Olivia, laughing.
She had had to stave off proposals before from men whom she was anxious to save from unnecessary pain. But with this grotesque little caricature of an admirer, she felt no sentiment deeper than a hope that he would not be silly. Insignificant as he seemed to her, however, she made a great mistake in despising him, and in forgetting that a small, mean nature is very much more dangerous than a nobler one. So that while she was innocently trying to avoid the annoyance of his love-making with light words and laughter, he was growing every moment more doggedly bent on doing her the honor of making known his admiration. Although the possibility of a refusal had not occurred to him, he felt nervous, as he would have felt with no other woman.
“I say, now, be serious a moment, can’t you? Or I shall think I paid you too great a compliment just now.”
“As I am not used to compliments, perhaps it got into my head.”