MEANWHILE Jacob Eaton rode out with Diana in the early mornings, before even Dr. Cheyney had his breakfast. Jacob had no taste for sunrise or the lark, but if Diana rode in the first freshness of morning, he rode stubbornly beside her, more stubbornly than she cared to admit.
After all, Jacob was her third cousin, and the propinquity, with the close family relations which Mrs. Eaton jealously maintained, made him seem even nearer. Without liking him very much, Diana had tolerated his constant presence for so many years that it had become a habit. No doubt we could grow happily accustomed to a hippopotamus as a pet, if we could keep it long enough in our individual bathtubs. Usage and propinquity! How many recalcitrants have been reconciled to an unwelcome fate by these two potent factors in life!
Diana, riding up the hill through clustered masses of rhododendrons, was happily indifferent to Jacob at her bridle rein. Jacob was useful, rather pleasant to talk to, and paid her the constant homage of undisguised admiration. After all, it was pleasant to be with one to whom she meant so much. She could hold him lightly at arm’s length, for Jacob was too wise to hazard all for nothing, yet she was aware that her lightest wish had its weight. It was only when he tried to assume the right of an elder brother to meddle with her affairs, as he had at Kitty Broughton’s ball, that she resented his interference.
Jacob had, indeed, slipped into her ways with a tame-cattiness which, no matter how it accorded with his sleek appearance, was in direct contradiction to the character behind the mask. Diana, flouting him in her girlish coquetry, was but sowing the wind; if she married him later, she would reap the whirlwind, yet half her relations desired it. Thus wisely does the outsider plan a life.
Diana stopped abruptly and, bending from the saddle, gathered a large cluster of pink rhododendrons; the dew was on them still and it sparkled in the sunshine.
“Why didn’t you let me break it for you?� Jacob asked mildly; “sometime when you bend that way from your saddle you’ll lose your balance and—�
“Take a cropper,� said Diana. “I hope I shan’t break my nose.�
“Or your head, which would mean my heart,� he retorted.
She laughed; she was very charming when she laughed and, perhaps, she knew it. Diana was very human. “Which is harder than my head,� she said; “in fact, I have heard something of the nether millstone.�
“You would find it very brittle if you turned the cold shoulder,� said Jacob calmly, flicking the young shrubs with his crop.