"We may as well be companions, Miss Holden, if you do not object," he said smilingly. "I should like to ascertain for myself whether the village report is true, for I may inform you that I have heard all that my butler can tell me, which means all that he can ascertain by shrewd and persistent inquiry."
"I am flattered by the attention of my neighbours," I replied, "and I can quite understand that in a little place like this the advent of a stranger will create a mild sensation, but I was not aware that there was anything so dreadful as a 'report' in circulation. The knowledge makes me uneasy; can you relieve my anxiety?"
He was walking along with his hands holding the lapels of his jacket, his light overcoat blowing about behind him, and he looked quizzically at me for a moment or two before he replied:
"I think you are able to take it in good part, for—if you will permit me to say so—I judge that you have too much common sense to be easily offended, and therefore I will admit that the villagers are prepared to look upon you as slightly 'daft,' to use their own expression. They cannot understand how, on any other supposition, you should act on a momentary impulse and leave the excitements of the metropolis for the simple life of a tiny village. I need hardly say that I realise that this is distinctly your own affair, and I am not asking you to give me your confidence, but you will not mind my telling you in what light the village regards this somewhat—unusual conduct."
I laughed. Goodness knows I am not touchy, and the opinion of my neighbours only amused me. But somehow I felt that I must justify my action to the squire, and my Inner Self put on her defensive armour in readiness for the battle. I seemed to know that this rather stern old man would regard my action as childish,—and indeed the scheme could not be regarded as reasonable; it was simply intuitive, and who can defend an intuition? I therefore replied:
"You have certainly relieved my disquietude. I thought the villagers might have conceived the notion that I was a fugitive from justice, and had a good reason for hiding myself in an out-of-the-way place. If they consider me inoffensive in my daftness I am quite content; for, after all, there are hundreds of people of much wider experience who would be not a whit more lenient in their judgment. In fact, I suspect that you yourself would endorse it emphatically, especially when I admit that the premise is correct from which the conclusion is drawn."
"You invite my interest," he returned, "but your silence will be a sufficient rebuke if my inquiries over-step the bounds of your indulgence. You tell me that the premise is correct. I understand, therefore, that you admit that you have acted on mere impulse; that, in fact, our friend Goodenough was speaking truly when he called it bluntly a 'whim.'"
"I am not skilled in dialectics," I said, feeling rather proud of the word all the same, and mightily astonished at my coolness; "but I should not call it a whim, but rather an intuition. I suppose there is a difference?"
He bent his brows together and paused in his walk; then he replied:
"Yes: there is a distinct difference. I cannot deny or disregard the power of the mind to discern truth without reasoning, but the two have so much in common that I think a whim may sometimes be mistaken for an intuition. Can you prove to me that this was an intuition?"