'Nothing. I thought I saw a fellow I know that's all. He's just gone into that public-house—the quiet-looking little place at the corner. I fancied I saw him on the course, but I don't see how it could be the man,' added James, dubiously. 'What should bring him down here? It isn't in his line?'
CHAPTER VIII.
HAVE THE HIGH GODS ANYTHING LEFT TO GIVE?
Mr. Penwyn set down his guests at the chandler's door, and drove home to the 'Waterfowl' in solitary state, the chariot in which he sat seeming a great deal too big for one medium-sized young man.
His ample meal on the course made dinner an impossibility, so he ordered a cup of coffee to be taken to him in the garden, and went out to smoke a cigar, on his favourite bench by the willow. The 'Waterfowl' was too far off the beaten tracks for any of the race people to come there, so James had the garden all to himself, even this evening.
The sun was setting beyond the bend of the river, just where the shining water seemed to lose itself in a rushy basin. The ruddy light shone on the windows of the town till they looked like fiery eyes gleaming through the grey evening mist; while, above the level landscape and the low, irregular town, rose the dusky bulk of the cathedral, dwarfing the distant hills, and standing darkly out against that changeful sky.
James Penwyn was in a meditative mood, and contemplated the landscape dreamily as he smoked an excellent cigar with Epicurean slowness, letting pleasure last as long as it would. Not that his soul was interpenetrated by the subtle beauties of the scene. He only thought that it was rather jolly, that solemn stillness after the riot of the racecourse—that lonely landscape after the movement of the crowd.
Only last night had Justina and he stood side by side in the moonlight—only last night had their hands met for the first time, and yet she seemed a part of his life, indispensable to his happiness.
'Is it love?' he asked himself, 'first love? I didn't think it was in me to be such a spoon.'