“He did say it was pretty hair,” she said, with her face lighting up, “and if I don’t make some one jealous yet it’s strange to me.”
She hesitated for a few moments as to whether she should take the same path as Geoffrey, and ended by flinging herself petulantly round and entering the house.
“It’s a glorious morning,” said Geoffrey, as he went down the steep, stone-paved pathway, drinking in the fresh salt-breeze. “I declare, it’s like living a new life here,” and his chest seemed to expand, and his muscles and nerves grow tense, as the life-blood bounded through his veins.
At times he felt as if he would like to rush off and run, like a school-boy, from the full tide of vitality that made his veins throb; but he went on soberly enough, exchanging a nod with different fishermen at their cottage doors, for most of them had come to know him now, and showed their white teeth in a friendly smile as he swung along.
He glanced at his watch as he neared the slope up which the mine chimney crawled, like a huge serpent, to the perpendicular shaft on the hill, and found he was an hour before his time; so walking sharply down to a little sandy stretch only bare at very low tides, he slipped off his boots, tied the laces together, and hung them over his shoulder, and then drew off his socks, which he thrust into his pocket, turned up his trousers, and had a good wade; after which, being without a towel, he began to walk along the dry sand so as to let sun and air perform the part of bath attendants, finally taking a seat upon a stone to put the final polish to his toes with a silk pocket-handkerchief.
He was bending down, seriously intent upon a few stray particles of sand, when a shadow fell athwart him, and looking up sharply, there stood Rhoda Penwynn.
“Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr Trethick,” she cried, colouring.
“Beg yours,” he said bluntly, as he started up and held out his hand; for it struck him that under the circumstances the better plan was to ignore his pursuit.
“It’s only a matter of custom,” he said to himself; “bare feet are no more indelicate than bare hands or bare shoulders, and if ever she goes to sea she won’t see many sailors wear socks and shoes.”
So in the coolest manner possible he walked by Rhoda’s side, as calmly as a barefooted friar of old, and as free from guile; while she felt half-annoyed, half ready to blush, and ended by smiling at her companion’s matter-of-fact ways. For he chatted about the place, the contents of the rock-pools, and the various weeds, and ended in the bluntest way by holding out his hand.