As he approached her, she noticed instantly that he was looking tired and ruffled. But the sight of her smoothed his brow. He threw himself down on the grass at her feet, and pressed his lips to the delicately tended hand that lay upon her lap.
"Have you missed me, madame?" he said, peremptorily.
Preoccupied as she was, Letty must needs flush and smile, so well she knew from his eager eye that she pleased him, that he noticed the pretty gown she had put on for luncheon, and that all the petting his absence had withdrawn from her for an hour or two had come back to her. Other women—more or less of her type—had found his ways beguiling before now. He took courtship as an art, and had his own rooted ideas as to how women should be treated. Neither too gingerly nor too sentimentally—but, above all, with variety!
He repeated his question insistently; whereupon Letty said, with her pert brightness, thinking all the time of the house, "I'm not going to make you vain. Besides, I have been frightfully busy."
"You're not going to make me vain? But I choose to be vain. I'll go away for the whole afternoon if I'm not made vain this instant. Ah! that's better. Do you know that you have the softest little curl on your soft little neck, and that your hair has caught the sun on it this morning?"
Letty instinctively put up a hand to tuck away the curl. But he seized the hand. "Little vandal!—What have you been busy with?"
"Oh! I have been over the house with Mrs. Matthews," said Letty, in another tone. "George, it's dreadful—the number of things that want doing. Do you know, positively, we could not put up more than two couples, if we tried ever so. And as for the state of the attics! Now do listen, George!"
And, holding his hand tight in her eagerness, she went through a vehement catalogue of all that was wanted—new furniture, new decoration, new grates, a new hot-water system, the raising of the wings, and so on to the alteration of the stables and the replanning of the garden. She had no sooner begun upon her list than George's look of worry returned. He got up from the grass, and sat on the bench beside her.
"Well, I'm sorry you dislike the place so much," he said, when her breath failed her, staring rather gloomily at his despised mansion. "Of course, it's quite true—it is an ugly hole. But the worst of it is, darling, I don't quite see how we're to do all this you talk about. I don't bring any good news from the pits, alas!"
He turned quickly towards her. The thought flashed through his mind—could he be justly charged with having married her on false pretences as to his affairs? No! There had been no misrepresentation of his income or his risks. Everything had been plainly and honestly stated to her father, and therefore to her. For Letty knew all that she wanted to know, and had managed her family since she was a baby.