"A fellow must have change. Many fellows go abroad regularly. I know a fellow who is going to hunt in Spain."
"What on earth should you do hunting in Spain, Val?"
She could not help it, she laughed outright at the idea. Val in Spain? Val, who knew no country, no sport, no language but his own? A glimmering of the truth dawned on Leo.
"I should think Spain was a very nice place to go to," observed she, regaining her composure, "a very nice place indeed."
But their eyes met, and the farce could be kept up no longer.
"You want to make me feel that I should miss you, and I should miss you," cried Leo, finding her tongue first. "I should be very, very sorry, now that we've met and met as old friends, and understand each other so well, to think that all through the long winter months you were to be far away,—so don't think of it, Val; you can't, you simply mustn't. And though I can't and won't do anything secret, I shall tell them at home straight out that I met you to-day—accidentally, for it was accidentally—and that we had a talk—they can't be angry with me for that,—and then, whether any one looks at me or not, I'll say boldly: 'So in future there will be no need for me to get out of Val Purcell's way'. There, that's settled. Here's your short cut, and I'll run home across these fields. Good-bye, and—and thank you, Val."
She was off, and though for a moment he thought of running after her, a glance at his watch stopped him.
It was already past one o'clock and though for himself he had nothing to fear if late for luncheon, since his grandmother was accustomed to unpunctuality, and would be only too ready to pardon it on the present occasion, with Leo it was different.
Luckily she was nearer home than he was. Flying along as she was doing, she might get in by a side door before the general stalked into the dining-room, and he sincerely hoped she would. He watched till she was out of sight. There was no one on earth whom Val disliked and feared as much as Leo's father.
The latter could not indeed snub him and snap at him, as when he was a boy—but it was almost worse to be looked at as though he were an offensive object, and to be heard in sneering silence if he ventured upon a remark. For all his witlessness Val, poor fellow, knew when he was happy and comfortable and when he was not, and he did not need his grandmother to tell him that he was no favourite with General Boldero.