“Beyond all expression!” he answered, looking into the eyes that questioned his so keenly.
“Why, then, John,” said she at last, “were I in thy place, I should forget John Derwent’s so great humility awhile—just ... for a moment!”
“A moment?”
“Well, say two moments, John ... or even three!... O Sir John Dering, art grown so strangely dense?”
Then Sir John rose.
“A moment,” he repeated, “two moments, or even three!” Taking her Grace’s two small hands, he kissed them rapturously. “Thou dear, kind friend,” quoth he, “thy trust, thy faith in ‘the poor dog with a bad name’ shall, methinks, resolve all my difficulties.... It shall be three! At the stile beyond the little footbridge.”
CHAPTER XXXV
BEING THE SHORTEST IN THIS BOOK
Sunset had long since paled its splendour; evening was fading into night, a warm and languorous twilight where stars peeped and a waxing radiance gave promise of a moon, while from wood remote, vague, mysterious stole the bubbling murmur of a night-jar.
And my Lady Herminia, having crossed the little footbridge that spanned whispering stream, paused to lean upon the adjacent stile, viewing all things tender-eyed, from the homely lights of Alfriston, twinkling here and there beyond dim-seen trees, to the far-flung majesty of the swelling, silent Downs beyond. Yet, it is to be supposed, she was by no means unconscious of him who stood beside her, though she started when at last he spoke.