“There is nothing in it that gives offence to one’s dignity as a human being,” she asserted, “which is more than can be said of the ordinary relation, especially if it be legal.”
She was issuing from little Martha’s cottage on one splendid morning, when she saw Professor Theobald coming up the road from Craddock Dene. He caught sight of Hadria, hesitated, coloured, glanced furtively up the road, and then, seeing he was observed, came forward, raising his cap.
“You can’t imagine what a charming picture you make; the English cottage creeper-covered and smiling; the nurse and child at the threshold equally smiling, yourself a very emblem of spring in your fresh gown, and a domestic tabby to complete the scene.”
“I wish I could come and see it,” said Hadria. She was waving a twig of lavender, and little Martha was making grabs at it, and laughing her gurgling laugh of babyish glee. Professor Theobald stood in the road facing up hill towards Craddock, whose church tower was visible from here, just peeping through the spring foliage of the vicarage garden. He only now and again looked round at the picture that he professed to admire.
“Do you want to see a really pretty child, Professor Theobald? Because if so, come here.”
He hesitated, and a wave of dark colour flooded his face up to the roots of his close-clipped hair.
He paused a moment, and then bent down to open the little gate. His stalwart figure, in the diminutive enclosure, reduced it to the appearance of a doll’s garden.
“Step carefully or you will crush the young ménage,” Hadria advised. The rosy-cheeked nurse looked with proud expectancy at the face of the strange gentleman, to note the admiration that he could not but feel.
His lips were set.
The Professor evidently knew his duty and proceeded to admire with due energy. Little Martha shrank away a little from the bearded face, and her lower lip worked threateningly, but the perilous moment was staved over by means of the Professor’s watch, hastily claimed by Hannah, who dispensed with ceremony in the emergency.