‘I spent many happy hours among its winding walks.’
‘And a few uncomfortable ones, I’m afraid. Have you forgotten that afternoon when, as you sat eating strawberries and cream in the summer-house, a caterpillar crawled down your neck? You made such extraordinary faces, that for a minute or two I felt quite frightened.’
‘Hum. I had certainly forgotten the caterpillar,’ answered the Baronet, not without a shade of annoyance.
‘And then I used to fancy that you were never quite easy in your mind as we sat together in the garden. There were certainly a great many frogs, and I think you never liked frogs.’
‘Not unless they were fricasséed. Trifling annoyances there might be, Lady Dimsdale; but when the presiding divinity was so fair’——
‘The presiding divinity, Sir Frederick? A painted divinity! We gave her a fresh coat of paint every spring. Poor old Aphrodite with her shell—she used to stand in the middle of the fishpond. But you forget, Sir Frederick, that she had lost her nose, and even a divinity hardly looks so charming without a nose as with one.’
Sir Frederick gave a sniff, and replied in his loftiest manner: ‘When I made use of the term “presiding divinity,” I need hardly say that I was referring to yourself, Lady Dimsdale.’
‘I really beg your pardon, Sir Frederick, but no one ever called me a divinity before. Do you know I rather like it.’ She led the way, as if unconsciously, to a wide-spreading yew, round the bole of which a low seat had been fixed. Here, in the grateful amplitude of shade, she sat down, and the Baronet seated himself a little distance away. It may be that she had some suspicion with regard to Sir Frederick’s errand this morning, and had made up her mind to get it over and have done with it at once and for ever.
‘Now for the plunge!’ said the Baronet to himself as he sat down. The plumage of his self-conceit had been somewhat ruffled both by her words and manner; but whatever temporary annoyance he might feel, it would never do to betray it at such an all-important crisis.
‘You are still the same Laura Langton that you were during those sunny days at the vicarage,’ he began in what he considered his most insinuating manner. ‘The same charm, the same power of fascination exist still. A happy time—at least for one of those two. But the ending was not a happy one—no, anything rather than that.’