“Lady Connie!—”
He paused. Her colour rushed too. She saw what he was thinking of; she perceived her blunder.
“For what else did you castigate me at Cannes?” he said, in a low voice. And his black eyes looked passionately into hers. But she recovered herself quickly.
“At any rate, you have more will than most people,” she said lightly. “Aren’t you always boasting of it? But you are quite right to go away.”
“I am not going for a week,” he put in quickly. “There will be time for two more rides.”
She made no reply, and they paced on. Suddenly the trees began to thin before them, and a splendid wave of colour swept across an open glade in full sunlight.
“Marvellous!” cried Constance. “Oh, stop a moment!”
They pulled up on the brink of a sea of blue. All around them the bluebells lay glowing in the sunshine. The colour and sparkle of them was a physical delight; and with occasional lingering tufts of primroses among them and the young oak scrub pushing up through the blue in every shade of gold and bronze, they made an enchanted garden of the glade.
Falloden dismounted, tied up his horse, and gathered a bunch for his companion.
“I don’t know—ought we?” she said regretfully. “They are not so beautiful when they are torn away. And in a week they will be gone—withered!”