“I’ve business there. And you?”
“I’ve business, too. Father is busy in the fields, and has asked me to do some bargaining for him up yonder.”
“You’re too bonnie and slim-to-see for bargaining, Cilla,” said Reuben.
“Am I?” she laughed, with frank disdain of flattery. “I can bargain well, Mr. Gaunt, when needs must. Ask father.”
The irony of life rose up and laughed at her, in the midst of this hearty springtime weather. If ever she had needed a hard heart and a clear knowledge of what barter meant, she needed them now. She had a great gift to bestow, or to withhold—the gift which lies in the hand of every woman once in a lifetime—and yet the spring, and Gaunt’s whimsical, gay air, bewildered all her judgment.
“You always flout me nowadays, Cilla,” he said.
Gaunt was strangely like the dogs he loved so well. Careless of the past, careless of the future, he longed always for the instant pleasure, and, if he were thwarted, assumed a helpless face of innocence. It seemed that the sense of guilt was left out of him at birth; thwartings by the way surprised him, when another man would have admitted that he got no more than his deserts.
Priscilla of the Good Intent, also, was strangely like herself this morning. She remembered that her father, and all the men-folk of Garth, were hard on Reuben. She looked at his devil-may-care and pleading face, and decided impulsively that they were wrong.
“I do not flout you willingly,” she answered, her candid eyes looking straight into Reuben’s own. “They are not fair to you in Garth here, and I am sorry.”
Across their talk came the patter of horse-hoofs, and the coach swung merrily round the corner and stopped with a flourish at the inn-door.