Her dog came back and looked up into her eyes. With a cry, which was half laughter, she raced with him along the path, scattering the wild birds into flight from bush and thicket.
Breathless, rosy, she halted at the river’s shallow edge.
Flung full length on the grass, she dipped her white fingers in the river, and dropped wind-flowers on the ripples to watch them dance away.
She listened to the world around her; it had much to say to her if she would only believe it. But she forced her mind back to her husband and lay brooding.
An old man in leggings and corduroys came stumping along the path; His Highness heard him coming and turned his keen head. Then he went and stood in front of his mistress, calm, inquisitive, dangerous.
“Mornin’, miss,” said the keeper; “I guess you must be one of our folks.”
“I am staying at the club-house,” she said, smiling, and sitting up on the grass.
“I’m old Peter, one o’ the guards,” he said. “Fine mornin’, miss, but a leetle bright for the fish—though I ain’t denyin’ that a small dark fly’d raise ’em; no’m. If I was sot on ketchin’ a mess o’ fish, I guess a hare’s-ear would do the business; yes’m. I jest passed Mr. Langham down to the forks, and I seed he was a-chuckin’ a hare’s-ear; an’ he riz ’em, too; yes’m.”
“How long have you been a keeper here?” she asked.
“How long, ’m? Waal, I was the fustest guard they had; yes’m. I live down here a piece. They bought my water rights; yes’m. An’ they give me the job. The president he sez to me, ‘Peter,’ he sez, jest like that—‘Peter, you was raised here; you know all them brooks an’ rivers like a mink; you stay right here an’ watch ’em, an’ I’ll do the squar’ by ye,’ he sez, jest like that. An’ he done it; yes’m.”