He played with the thought of her, as she now appeared to him. A hint was enough; she was no saint, he had told her; and he knew that, for his purposes, she was all the better for that. Old Germain was clearly a victim—old Germain, of all men possible! How she attracted men—with her pallor, and heavy lids, and those peering, looming, speaking eyes beneath them. What did she want of them? Love, love, and more love—insatiable, was she—and unappeasable? A small, secret, pale, and careworn little huntress; hunting to be hunted, never caught and never catching. Strange! But there were women like that, nympholepts—and wherein lay their charm for men? Oh, well, he knew. He ought to know. And Germain—old Germain—great Heaven! A little Venus—Venus toute entière . . . and raised in a suburb, earning her bread as a nursery-governess! Stuff for a sonnet here! He laughed, and sketched it by the open window.

The thought was good. It pleased, excited him, kept him wakeful. A cigar into the still dark seemed reasonable.

She was charming. Her transparency was charming, which made it so easy to see her little shifts and designs; the casting of her home-made nets, and setting of her primitive snares. She betrayed her need so simply. When once you had her confidence there were no more drawbacks, no reticences. By George, she was as simply pagan as a South Sea Islander; not a stitch on her—and a scarlet flower between her teeth. One might drown one’s self in love—for a season—if one were a fool. But one was not, you see. This simple creature, this little Suburban Venus, showed such extraordinary aptitude for the rarer thing, was so susceptible to the finer shades of the business, that one would need be a tearing fool if he—No, and it would be a shame. He would never do that. Better on all accounts to be free—better not commit one’s self. She would always be there, could be counted upon. He knew women, he told himself.

They will wait for you—wait for ever, helped on by a little kindness. It’s not love they want from you—they have more than enough of that themselves; it’s tenderness, once the imagination is really struck. She! Oh, there was no doubt about her. She was his for all time, sensitive, flushing, and paling creature, alternately too bold and too coy. Bold when she ought not—coy when she need not; these were flaws, but he protested that they charmed him. Flaws there must be; it was not reasonable to suppose himself pioneer in that little thicket; and, while the knowledge must cheapen, yet it endeared her to him. Some subtle excitation of sense was stirred by that. What now?

He probed, but gave over the analysis. “Damn it, I’m too curious,” he said. “Sonnets don’t come this way. I must compose her, not dissect.”

But there was to be no more composition of sonnets. He had warped his mood, so threw away his cigar, and went to bed.

IV
A MISS AND A CATCH

As for Mr. Germain, whatever his nightly meditations or dreams may have been, he was as good as his word, and stoutly took the field on the morrow when Misperton Brand, having lost the toss, spread itself over the greensward under Mr. Soames’s eye and imperative hand. Mr. Soames was a bowler and desperately in earnest; to see him marshal his field was a study in statesmanship. Knowledge of men went to it. “Can you throw?” he had asked the stately gentleman who had somehow to be accounted for; and when Mr. Germain replied that he would do his best to oblige him—“Verbum sap,” he said afterwards to Duplessis, “I knew what that meant all right, and put him cover. He only missed two catches, you know, and one of ’em was old Blacklock who simply has to make a run. I don’t call that so bad!”

The game was played in the Rectory field, where the tent and trestle-tables, and in truth some of the baked meats of a recent festival did duty for to-day. Behind the railings, as before, sat Mrs. James and her Cantacutes. Miss de Speyne was not there, but Mrs. Duplessis was—a carefully preserved lady, handsome and fatigued. On the further side of the field were benches, and here also spectators clustered—farmers’ ladies, the doctor and his wife, Mr. Nunn, the retired solicitor, who lived at The Sanctuary and employed Miss Middleham to look after his children; young Perivale, the auctioneer’s son, from Townham, the Misses Finch, of Stockfield Peverel, the Misses Wake; and Mary Middleham was undoubtedly there, with white sunshade, her young charges about her, or running from her to papa and back as needs might be. And to Miss Middleham it undoubtedly was that Mr. Germain, on an occasion of attempting to retrieve a slashing cut by the butcher’s man—and fruitlessly, seeing he was outpaced by the second gardener from the Rectory—paid the distinction of a salute before he returned leisurely to the fray.

She had been standing with a group of acquaintances, of whom Miss Kitty Wake, Miss Sally Wake, and Miss Letty Wake—all of Whiteacre Farm—formed three, and young Perivale a fourth. Upon these young people the courtesy smote like a puff of wind. Perivale blinked, and “Gracious! Who’s that?” escaped Miss Sally, and was caught and expounded by her sister Kitty. “Stupid. It’s Mr. Germain, the Rector’s brother.”