"Is that enough?" Harding asked.
The boy eyed it. He did not think he could possibly manage any more, but he said—
"I don't know," just as a measure of precaution.
"Well, eat that first," said the other, and sat, resting his head on his hand.
He knew Nutfield Lane. It was three or four miles from the Priory; Guy and he went that way sometimes. He remembered a gate there, with posts set close to a couple of towering elms, that arched it with their budding boughs, and thrust their roots above the trodden pathway. There was a meadow beyond, the prettiest possible background for a pretty little Devonshire girl with her hands full of cowslips. As to her looking out for any one—he would like to walk straight up to those vulgar, chattering, expensive young women, and knock their heads together. It seemed to Harding that there would be something very soothing and satisfying about such an expression of his opinion, if only it were possible! But it could not be, and he relinquished the thought with a sigh, as he had relinquished the pursuit of other unattainable joys.
"N—no, I don't want any more," said Guy, regretfully. "Only some more beer."
Harding nodded, with that absent-minded acquiescence which had endeared him to his pupil. Guy was only to him like a buzzing fly, or any other tiresome little presence, to be endured in silence, and, as far as possible, ignored. But when that afternoon the boy came to him with the announcement that he should be twelve on Tuesday, and his father was going to take him somewhere for the whole day, Reynold raised his head from the exercise he was correcting, and looked at him fixedly.
"That's all right," he said, after a moment.
In that moment he had made up his mind. He wanted to see Barbara. And then? He did not know what then, but he wanted to see her.
The white spring sunshine lighted the page which Guy had scrawled and blotted, and Reynold sat with the pen between his fingers, dreaming. He would see Barbara, but he would not even attempt to think what he would do or say when they met. He had planned and schemed before, and chance had swept all his schemes away. Now he would leave it all to chance; it was enough for him to think that he would certainly see her again.