"Certainly not. But in the long evenings—don't you know?" The vicar smiled persuasively. "However, there it is—whenever she comes she will be welcome. And then, as to your seat in church. There is a pew that has always belonged to the farm. It is about half-way up."
"We don't go to church," said Rachel, facing him. "At least, I don't."
She looked at her companion.
"And I can't be counted on," said Janet, smiling.
The vicar flushed a little.
"Then you're not Church of England?"
"I am," said Rachel indifferently; "at least I'm not anything else. Miss Leighton is a Unitarian." Then her eyes lit up with a touch of fun, and for the first time she smiled. "I'm afraid you'll think us dreadful heathens, Mr. Shenstone!"
What the vicar did think was that he had never seen a smile transform a face so agreeably. And having begun to smile, Rachel perversely continued it. She walked to the gate with her visitor, talking with irrelevant animation, inviting him to come the following day to help in the "carrying," asking questions about the village and its people, and graciously consenting to fix a day when she and her friend would go to tea with Miss Shenstone at the vicarage. The young man fairly beamed under the unexpected change, and lingered at the gate as though unable to tear himself away; till with a little peremptory nod, though still smiling, Rachel dismissed him.
Janet Leighton meanwhile watched it all. She had seen Rachel treat a new male acquaintance before as she had just treated the vicar. To begin with, the manners of an icicle; then a sudden thaw, just in time to save the situation. She had come with amusement to the conclusion that, however really indifferent or capricious, her new friend could not in the long run resign herself to be disliked, even by a woman, and much more in the case of a man. Was it vanity, or sex, or both? Temperament perhaps; the modern word which covers so much. Janet remembered a little niece of her own who in her mother's absence entertained a gentleman visitor with great success. When asked for his name, she shook her pretty head. "Just a man, mummy," she said, bridling. Janet Leighton suspected that similar tales might have been told of Miss Henderson in her babyhood.
And yet impressions recurred to her of another kind—of a sensitive, almost fierce delicacy—a shrinking from the ugly or merely physical facts of life, as of one who had suffered some torment in connection with them.
Janet's eyes followed the curly brown head as its possessor came slowly back from the gate. She was thinking of a moment when, one evening, while they were both still at college, they had realized their liking for each other, and had agreed to set up in partnership. Then Rachel, springing to her feet, with her hands behind her, and head thrown back, had said suddenly: "I warn you, I have a story. I don't want to tell you, to tell anybody. I shan't tell you. It's done with. I give you my word that I'm not a bad woman. But if you don't want to be my partner on these terms, say so!"