“Dick, old fellow,” said Pratt, “you’re not annoyed?”
“But I am—deucedly annoyed—not with you, Franky; but don’t say any more now, I mean to think it over.”
“Being a friend to an unsuspicious man is about the most unpleasant post on the face of the earth,” said Pratt, moralising, as he saw his friend stride away. “Everybody hates you for enlightening him, and even he cannot forgive you for waking him from his pleasant dreams. Now where has he gone?—oh, to bully that plotting old woman. Well, I’ve done right, I think; and now I’ll have my stroll.”
Frank Pratt started off to do what he called “a bit of melancholy Jaques,” in the pleasant woodland lanes; and was not long in finding an agreeable perch, where he seated himself, lit his big pipe, and began communing with himself till the pipe was smoked out; and then he sat on and thought without it, till a coming light footstep took his attention.
“Now I make a solemn affidavit,” he said, “that I did not come here to play the spy upon anybody’s actions. If they choose to come and act under my very nose, why, I must see the play. Who’s this?”
“This” proved to be little Polly, who walked quickly by him, glancing suspiciously round as she continued her walk.
“Scene the first!” said Pratt; “enter village maiden with flowers. To her village lover,” he continued as a heavy step was heard. “No, by Jove! it’s Dick.”
He was right, for Trevor came along at a swinging pace, and apparently in a few moments he would overtake the girl.
“If I didn’t believe Dick Trevor to be as open as the day, how suspicious that would look!” thought Pratt.
Trevor passed on without seeing him, and then there was a pause. The sun’s rays darted through the overhanging boughs; birds flitted and sang their little love songs overhead; and in a half-dreamy way Pratt sat thinking upon his perch till voices and coming footsteps once more aroused him.