Was not this a golden opportunity? Did she hear the grating of that accursed rake just round the laurel-bush? Could that be why her blue eyes shone so soft and kind, why the words dropped from her rosy mouth like honey from the comb? The gravel-walk (lately raked, and be hanged to it!) was rough as Brighton shingle; his trousers were of the thinnest fabric known to Messrs. Miles; yet I confidently believe Goldthred would have popped down on his knees, then and there, to run that one great chance he dwelt on night and day, but for the additional step that brought them face to face with a gardener working leisurely, in rolled-up shirt-sleeves, and surrounded by the implements of his art. Goldthred swore, I fear, though not aloud. The happy moment had slipped through his fingers like running-water, like the sands of time, like change for a sovereign, like everything else in a world that "keeps moving," whether we will or no. Of all impossibilities, there is none so impossible as to put the clock back.
Beyond this inopportune gardener, they came in sight of certain haymakers, and turning from these were close to the house once more. No further explanation was practicable, but unless some tacit agreement had been made to the lady's satisfaction, she would hardly have pushed her roses in the gentleman's face, with a sweet smile and a recommendation to inhale their fragrance while they were fresh.
"You deserve them all, indeed you do!" she said warmly. "And I'll put the best of them on your dressing-table myself. Thank you really. You won't forget your promise? I know I can depend upon you."
Then she marched into the drawing-room laden with her spoils, well pleased; while Goldthred, retiring to smoke the morning cigar, felt less satisfied, on reflection, than he had been when the white fingers and red roses were so close to his lips a while ago.
It seems that in all couples, not excepting the matrimonially tethered, a pair must necessarily pull different ways. Goldthred's innocent notion of heaven upon earth was that this despotic lady should become his wife, but she had handled him so skilfully, he dared not ask for fear of being refused. Mrs. Lascelles, who deserved some credit for crushing down the instinct of appropriation, natural to all women, however little they may prize an admirer, would have been glad, to do her justice, that Helen, for her own sake, should make an advantageous marriage. She reflected, moreover, that her furtherance of such an arrangement would bring her into closer relations with Sir Henry. Then she wondered whether she still liked him, confessing in her secret heart she was almost afraid she did.
That careless, easy-going personage had disposed himself, in the mean time, on the most sloping of garden chairs under a tree. Helen had brought him the morning and weekly papers, also one of the evening before. He was cool, comfortable, and thoroughly satisfied with Sir Henry Hallaton. His rings were more abundant, his whiskers more riotous, his handkerchief of brighter hues than ever. Had he not looked so like a gentleman his style of dress would have been gaudy and almost slang; but the combination had done him good service for many years, and he stuck to it still. Smoking a huge cigar, he watched its wreathes curling and clinging about the dark, crisp foliage of the cedar-branch over-head, while his thoughts wandered dreamily amongst the various interests of his pleasant, lazy, useless, and rather selfish life: his Alderneys at Blackgrove; his bailiff's book; the two-year old they were breaking at home; the brougham Barker was building him in London; Outrigger's chance in the Thames Handicap to-day; Uncle Joseph's dry champagne last night; the dress Mrs. Lascelles wore yesterday at the races; how Miss Ross had pulled in her waist this morning; on divine women in endless perspective, whom he had loved, or thought he loved, or made love to, without even that excuse, concluding how very few were equal to Helen. What a dear little thing it was as a child! What a graceful, engaging girl! So frank, so gentle, such a lady, and so fond of him! Suspecting that, after all, he really cared more for his own daughter than he had ever cared for the daughter, or wife, or mother of anybody else.
Arriving at this conclusion, and the end of his cigar, he was aware of a light step on the lawn, a rustle of muslin skirts trailing across the sward,—a familiar sound, to which, I fear, Sir Henry's ear turned, as turns the charger's to the trumpet call, the hunter's to the well-known challenge of a "find." Miss Ross, carrying a plateful of strawberries, bent over him, a world of mirth and mischief gleaming in her bright black eyes.
"You take life very easily, Sir Henry," said she, looking down on his recumbent figure with a sort of sarcastic admiration. "I'm a pretty cool hand myself, so people tell me, but I can't hold a candle to you, I must confess."
"Exactly," replied Sir Henry. "Prettier, but not so cool. I quite agree with you. I know what you mean."
"I don't mean it a bit!" exclaimed Miss Ross; "and of all people in the world I don't want you to tell me I'm pretty. You know that, or, at least, you ought to know it by this time!"