“Thanks,” said Claudia, crushingly; “but I prefer to work out ideas by myself. Do you know you have wasted a great deal of my time this morning?” She looked at her wrist as she spoke. “There is only half an hour to breakfast, and I must do the best I can with that.”
He made another effort.
“You’ll lose your way.”
She escaped with a laugh.
“If I do, I give you leave to come and hunt for me.”
Harry stood looking after her, mingled feelings in his heart. Each time that he saw her he seemed to like her better, and this morning her fresh charm, the light in her eyes, and the general harmony which existed between her youth and that of the day, the sky, and the woods, affected him strongly. He found it, too, very pleasant to see the woman he was beginning to love better than any one else in the world, in the place which was so dear to him, and her admiration for his old home gave him keen satisfaction.
But there were damping reflections. He had enough shrewd common sense to be aware, not only that Claudia flung no glance in the direction where he would have had her look, but that her friendliness was, to say the least, pitying. He had heard her inveigh—with the vigour she was apt to put into her lightest words—against the drones who have no purpose in the world, and something in her manner had made him fully understand that she looked on him as a drone. He felt this hard, although he did not resent it, for he was not the man to talk about himself, and she could not be expected to realise how incapable his father was of managing the estate. But he was afraid it would always weigh with her, and the thought caused him great pain. He saw no way of altering her opinion, unless it came to her spontaneously, and in the light of a discovery of her own, for no one could know Claudia, even for a week—and he remembered with surprise that he had not actually known her much longer—without perceiving that she preferred her own judgments to those of other people.
It need not be thought, however, that, because Harry saw difficulties ahead, he took them to be insuperable, or even particularly alarming. Young, sturdy, healthy, he was the last man in the world to become the prey of morbid fancies. He could not forget that moment in which her hand had lain in his. He had her at Thornbury, which was present joy; she was pleased with the place, and though he had no high opinion of his own attractions, he was quite ready to hope that the place might count for something, and told himself—it must be owned with a pang—not to be such a fool as to begrudge her a free hand among the trees. Then, his reflections having mounted his spirits high, he whistled cheerily to the dogs, stuck his hands into his pockets, and walked towards the house, heroically resisting all temptations to waylay Claudia.
She arrived rather late.
“Here you are, my dear,” said Mrs Hilton, kindly. “How have you slept? Are you rested? Watkins said you would not let her do anything for you.”