He paused again before speaking. It seemed to Barbara that this young man did nothing but pause. "I don't think you can get it," he said, looking at the brambles. "I really don't think you can."
If Barbara had frankly uttered her inmost sentiments she would have said, "Great idiot—no—not if you don't go away!" But, as it was, she coloured yet more in her shyness, and stooped to pick up her nosegay from the ground. He had been within an inch of treading on it.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed, starting back. "How clumsy of me!"
Something in his tone disarmed her. She feared that she had been ungracious, and moreover she was a little doubtful whether she would not find it difficult to regain her trinket without his help. "You haven't done any harm," she said. Then, glancing downward, "Well, if you will be so kind."
The new-comer surveyed the situation so intently that Barbara took the opportunity of surveying him.
She was familiar, in novels, with heroes and heroines who were not precisely beautiful, yet possessed a nameless and all-conquering charm. Perhaps for that very reason she was slow to recognize good looks where this charm was absent. The tall young fellow who stood a few steps away, gazing with knitted brows at the little wilderness of briers, was really very handsome, but he was not certain of the fact. Beauty should not be self-conscious, but it should not despondently question its own existence. This man seemed to be accustomed to a chilly, ungenial atmosphere, to be numbed and repressed, to lack fire. Barbara fancied that if he touched her his hand would be cold.
In point of actual features he was decidedly the superior of the young fellow who was climbing the hill-side, but the pleasant colour and grace were altogether wanting. Yet he was not exactly awkward. Neither was he ill-dressed, though his clothes did not seem to express his individuality, except perhaps by the fact that they were black and grey. Any attempt at description falls naturally into cold negatives, and the scarlet autumn berries which were just a jewel-like brightness in the first picture would have been a strange and vivid contrast in the second.
His momentary hesitation on the brink of his venture was not in reality indecision, but the watchful distrust produced by a conviction that circumstances were hostile. He wished to take them all into account. Having briefly considered the position of the cross, and the steepness of the bank, he stepped boldly down. In less than half a second the treacherous earth had betrayed him; his foot slipped, he fell on his back, and slid down the short incline to the muddy ditch at the bottom, losing his hat by the way.
Barbara, above him, uttered a silvery little "Oh!" of dismay and surprise. She was not accustomed to a man who failed in what he undertook.
The victim of the little accident was grimly silent. With a scrambling effort he recovered his footing and lost it again. A second attempt was more successful; he secured the cross, clambered up, and restored it to its owner, turning away from her thanks to pick up his hat, which luckily lay within easy reach. Barbara did not know which way to look. She was painfully, burningly conscious of his evil plight. His boots were coated with mire, his face was darkly flushed and seamed with a couple of brier scratches, a bit of dead leaf was sticking in his hair, and "Oh," thought Barbara, "he cannot possibly know how muddy his back is!"