It was Rose's fault; she is really incorrigible, and absolutely heedless of consequences! If I had dreamed that she would have done such a thing I would never have told her, but that is the worst of blanket confidences. I call them "blanket" confidences because it was after we had gone to bed, when it was quite dark and Rose was inclined to be reasonable, that I had explained to her calmly and quite seriously that I had not mentioned the Cynic in my letters because there had been no reason to do so; and Rose had accepted the explanation, like a good girl, and kissed me to show her penitence. Then I told her of the nickname I had given him, which she thought very appropriate. But I would have held my tongue between my teeth if I had contemplated the possibility of her revealing the secret; and here she had blurted it out with a laugh, to my utter and dire confusion.
We had had a glorious day, and I must admit that the Cynic had added not a little to our enjoyment. He said he would have felt like a fool to be walking out in black West of Englands, so he had called at the Hall and got the butler to find up an old shooting jacket of the squire's, which was much too large for him, but in which he appeared quite unconcernedly a full ten minutes before the time appointed.
"It isn't a good fit," he remarked with a laugh, "but the other toggery was impossible for the moors."
Under his guidance we had gone farther than we should otherwise have ventured, and he had pointed out a hundred beauties and wonders our untrained eyes would never have seen. He had interpreted the varying cries of the curlew, and shown us how intently the gamekeeper listened to them, so that he might know whether man or beast or bird was attracting the watcher's notice. He had pointed out the trustful little twite, which I should have mistaken for a linnet, and followed it to its abode, where he told us we should find a single feather stuck conspicuously in the edge of the nest; and it had been even so. Our botanical knowledge would have been greatly increased if we had remembered all he told us, but though we did not do so we were deeply interested, for he had none of the air of the schoolmaster, and he did not expect us to take our lessons very seriously.
And now the day was spent, and our energy, though not our spirits, had flagged considerably. We were sitting on the edge of the moor, a mile or so away from home, and the flush of evening spread over the valley and the distant hills, turning the landscape into mystery. The lamp of the setting sun was flickering out in the west, but the handmaidens of the night had lit their tiny torches here and there, and they shone faintly behind the veil of twilight, giving promise of greater radiance when the time should come for them to go forth to meet the crescent bride who tarried in her coming.
I was gazing on it dreamily, and breathing out peace and goodwill towards men when Rose dropped her bomb, and shattered my complacency.
"What makes you call me the Cynic?" He turned his eyes upon me and awaited my answer with evident curiosity.
I looked at him in my turn. He had been bareheaded all day, for he had left his hat at the Hall, and he was now leaning back against a rock, his hands clasped behind his head, and the mischievous look I have so often noticed sparkling in his eyes. He really is rather a fine man, and he has certainly a good strong face. I replied, calmly enough to outward seeming:
"Because it has seemed to me an apt description."
"I hope not," he replied. "Cynicism is the small change of shallow minds. All the same, it is interesting to be criticised. I did not know when I offered to analyse your character that I was being subjected to the same test."