“For what? For afternoon tea by your own fireside? Have you anybody waiting for you at the Angler’s Nest, that you should be in such a hurry to get home?”
“No, there is no one waiting, except Tabitha. I expect no one.”
“Then why walk yourself into a fever?”
“Tabitha gets fidgety if I am out after dusk.”
“Then let Tabitha fidget! It will be good for her liver. Those adipose people require small worries to keep them in health. You mustn’t over-pace yourself to oblige Tabitha.”
She had slackened her steps, and he was walking by her side, looking down at her from that superb altitude which gave him an unfair advantage. How could she, upon her lower level, escape those searching glances?
She knew that her way home was his way home, so far as the bend of the road which led away from the river; and to avoid him for the intervening distance would have been difficult. She must submit to his company on the road, or make a greater effort than it was in her nature to make.
“You mean to go to this ball, don’t you?” he asked earnestly.
“I think not.”
“Oh, but pray do! Why should you shut yourself from all the pleasures of this world, and live like a nun, always? You might surely make just one exception for such a grand event as the Hunt Ball. You have no idea how much we all think of it hereabouts. Remember, it will be the first public dance we have had at Lostwithiel for ever so many years. You will see family diamonds enough to make you fancy you are at St. James’s. Do you think Major Disney would dislike your having just one evening’s dissipation?”