Lifting her skirt daintily, she picked her way across the dirty yard, and fumbled at a door opposite—the door whence she had seen old Daffady come out at dinner-time.
"Who's there?" shouted a threatening voice from within.
Laura succeeded in lifting the clumsy latch. Hubert Mason, from inside, saw a small golden head appear in the doorway.
"Would you kindly help me get the pony cart?" said the light, half-sarcastic voice of Miss Fountain. "I must be going, and Polly's feeding the calves."
Her eyes at first distinguished nothing but a row of dim animal forms, in crowded stalls under a low roof. Then she saw a cow lying on the ground, and Hubert Mason beside her, amid the wreaths of smoke that he was puffing from a clay pipe. The place was dark, close, and fetid. She withdrew her head hastily. There was a muttering and movement inside, and Mason came to the door, thrusting his pipe into his pocket.
"What do you want to go for, just yet?" he said abruptly.
"I ought to get home."
"No; you don't care for us, nor our ways. That's it; an I don't wonder."
She made polite protestations, but he would not listen to them. He strode on beside her in a stormy silence, till the impulse to prick him overmastered her.
"Do you generally sit with the cows?" she asked him sweetly. She shot her grey eyes towards him, all mockery and cool examination. He was not accustomed to such looks from the young women whom he chose to notice.