“Excuse me, Miss,” he said to Gladys, “but Miss Lacrima asked me to tell you that she was waiting for you on the bridge.”
“Thank you, James,” answered the girl simply, “I will come. I am afraid my interest in all the things your brother has been so kindly showing me has made you both late. I am sorry.” Here she actually went so far as to fumble in her skirt for her purse. After an awkward pause, during which the two men waited at either side of the door, she found what she sought, and tripping lightly by, turned as she passed Luke and placed in his hand, the hand that so recently had been clasped about her person, the insolent recompense of a piece of silver. Bidding them both good-night, she hurried away to rejoin Lacrima, who, having by this time got rid of Mr. Quincunx, moved down the road to meet her.
Luke closed and locked the door of the shed without a word. Then to the astonishment of James Andersen he proceeded to dance a kind of grotesque war-dance, ending it with a suppressed half-mocking howl, as he leant exhausted against the wall of the building.
“I’ve got her, I’ve got her, I’ve got her!” he repeated. “James, my darling Daddy James, I’ve got this girl in the palm of my hand!” He humorously proceeded to toss the coin she had given him high in the air. “Heads or tails?” he cried, as the thing fell among the weeds. “Heads! It’s heads, my boy! That means that Miss Gladys Romer will be sorry she ever stepped inside this work-shop of ours. Come, let’s wash and eat, my brother; for the gods have been good to us today.”
CHAPTER V
FRANCIS TAXATER
The day following the one whose persuasive influence we have just recorded was not less auspicious. The weather seemed to have effected a transference of its accustomed quality, bringing to the banks of the Yeo and the Parret the atmospheric conditions belonging to those of the Loire or the Arno.
Having finished her tea Valentia Seldom was strolling meditatively up and down the vicarage terrace, alternately stopping to pick off the petals of a dead flower, or to gaze, with a little gloomy frown, upon the grass of the orchard.
Her slender upright figure, in her black silk dress, made a fine contrast to the rich green foliage about her, set on one side with ruby-coloured roses and on the other with yellow buttercups. But the old lady was in no peaceful frame of mind. Every now and then she tapped the gravel impatiently with her ebony stick; and the hand that toyed with the trinkets at her side mechanically closed and unclosed its fingers under the wrist-band of Mechlin lace. It was with something of an irritable start, that she turned round to greet Francis Taxater, as led by the little servant he presented himself to her attention. He moved to greet her with his usual imperturbable gravity, walking sedately along the edge of the flowery border; with one shoulder a little higher than the other and his eyes on the ground.