Cupid answered by raising his eyebrows in question and jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a lighted window against which Neville's figure was outlined.
"Ay," answered Philpotts, as if he had spoken, "it's my master I was thinking of. It's my very life I'd give to see him himself again. You did never see such a man as he was in his prime, Cupid, and that's not long since. My brother knew him when he was little more than a boy, and he says he was the bravest and the blithest lad in all the shire of Somerset. But he fell in love, Cupid. He fell in love, and that's how all a man's troubles begin."
Cupid grinned so widely that all his shining row of white teeth showed against the blackness of his face like a row of candles.
"Massa Romney he no tink so. See!"
Following Cupid's eyes, Philpotts saw Master Romney standing on the terrace below the little white bedroom, and flinging roses against the window, from which Peggy was leaning and laughingly dodging the flowers as they struck.
"Come down, mistress mine. Thou art late, and the company is half gathered already."
"Go away, then, and do not break my window, and then leave me to thy mother's reproof."
With the words she shut to the casement and flung down a rose which had landed on the sill. Romney stooped, picked it up, kissed it, and thrust it into the breast of his coat.
Philpotts and Cupid looked at each other and burst into a shout of laughter.
"Come, Cupid, we must in and help about the horses. Youth will be youth, and fools will fall in love while the world lasts."