Ingram remained before the fire looking out of window. “She's in a wax. I don't know why.”
“Oh, don't you, my boy?” said Chevenix to himself.
Mrs. Wilmot trifled with her tea-spoon. “And I don't care—much,” he added. Mrs. Wilmot smiled.
Mr. Chevenix, going a-fishing, saw, as he had intended to see, Sanchia in the rose-garden, talking to Struan Glyde, who was tying ramblers. “Morning, Sanchia—morning, Glyde!” Each greeted him, but the youth grimly.
He talked at large. “I'm for murder. I must flesh my steel. It's too good a day to lose. Clouds scurry, sun is shy; air's balmy: a trout must die. That is very nearly poetry, Sancie. It is as near poetry as I can hope to get this side the harps and quires. Now, what on earth is Clyde doing to his roses at this time of year?”
The dark-skinned, sharp-chinned young man, aproned and shirt-sleeved, turned a shade darker. His black eyes glowed. He was quietly arrogant, even to her. “It doesn't matter,” he had once told her, “what you say or do. I love you, and that's the sum and end of it.” Now he allowed her to answer for him.
“There was a wind in the night which tore them about. I asked him to make them safe. I hate to think of their bruised ribs.”
Chevenix whistled his satisfaction with this and all things else. “I see. Works of mercy. There's a blessing on that, somewhere and somewhen. All to the good, you know, Clyde. You never know your luck, they tell me.” He left Clyde and his roses, and turned to the young lady. “Well now, look here, Sancie—if works of mercy are toward, what d'you say to one on your own account? Here I stand, an orphan boy, upon my honour. The master's gone riding with the widow.” He stopped his rattle, as a thought struck him serious for a moment. “By George, and he's a widower—so he is!” Discharged of that, he resumed—“Yes, and Mrs. Devereux has got the hump, as they say—and here I am at your mercy, to be made much of. Who's going to admire me? Who's going to hold my net? Who's going to say, 'Oh, what a beauty!'” He had now got her thoroughly at her old ease with him. Her eyes gleamed, and there was no doubting her smile. “Now, I'll tell you what. Your roses are all right. Glyde will see to that. You leave that to Glyde and his strong right arm. His strength is as the strength of ten, because... you follow me, I think? Now, Sancie, I put it to you—I'm an old friend of the family, and haven't seen you for—how many years? Aren't you going to give me half-an-hour of your morning?”
He pleaded by looks. He was quizzical, but in earnest. Her brow was clear.
“Yes,” she said. “I'll come—for half-an-hour.”