But he did not see, though Constance did, and she felt troubled and anxious. She had understood for long how it was with Ellice. She had seen the girl’s eyes turned with dog-like devotion towards the man who was all unconscious of the passion he had aroused. But she saw it all in her quiet way, and was anxious and worried, as a kindly, gentle, tender-hearted woman must be when she notices one of her own sex give all the love of a passionate heart to one who neither realises nor desires it.
So, day after day, Johnny drove over to Starden, and when he came Helen would smile quietly and take herself off about some household duty, leaving the young people together. And Joan would greet him with a smile from which all coldness now had gone, for she accepted him as a friend. She saw his sterling worth, his honour and his honesty. He was like some great boy, so open and transparent was he. To her he had become “Johnny,” to him she was “Joan.”
To-day they were wandering up and down the garden paths, side by side.
The garden lay about them, glowing in the sunshine of the early afternoon. Beyond the high bank of hollyhocks and the further hedge of dark yew, clipped into fantastic form, one could catch a glimpse of the old house, with its steep sloping roof, its many gables, its whitened walls, lined and crossed by the old timbers. The hum of the bees was in the air, heavy with the fragrance of many flowers.
And Joan was thinking of a City office, of a man she hated and feared, a man with bold eyes and thick, sensual lips. And then her thoughts drifted away to another man, and she seemed to hear again the last word he had spoken to her—“Ungenerous.” And suddenly she shivered a little in the warm sunlight.
“Joan, you are not cold. You can’t be cold,” Johnny said.
She laughed. “No, I was only thinking of the past. There is much in the past to make one shiver, I think, and oh, Johnny, I was thinking of you too!”
“Of me?”
She nodded. “Helen was telling me how keen and eager you were about your farm, how difficult it was to get you to leave it for an hour.” She paused. “That—that was before you came here, the first time—and since then you have been here almost every day. Johnny, aren’t you wasting your time?” She looked at him with sweet seriousness.
“I am wasting my time, Joan, when—when I am not with you!” he said, and his voice shook with sudden feeling, and into his face there came a wave of colour. “To be near you, to see you—” He paused.