Excitements tread upon each other's heels. After Barjona, the Cynic. He appeared unexpectedly on Monday morning, and I took the long-promised photographs, which have turned out very badly; why, I don't know. He was not in his Sunday best, so the fault did not lie there; and his expression was all right, but I could not catch it on the plate, try as I might. He was very much amused, and accused me of looking haggard over the business, which was absurd. Every photographer is anxious to secure a satisfactory result, or if he is not he does not deserve to succeed. I think really I was afraid of his waxing sarcastic over my attempts at portraying his features. He is not a handsome man, as I may have remarked before, but he is not the sort that passes unnoticed, and I wanted to secure on the plate the something that makes people look twice at him; and I failed. I took several negatives, but none of them was half as nice as the original; and yet we are told that photography flatters!
He professed an indifference which I am afraid he felt, and Mother Hubbard assured him over the dinner-table that there was not the slightest ground for anxiety. It will be a long time, I fear, before he gets the proofs. He stayed to dinner on his own invitation, and Mother Hubbard prepared one of her extra special Yorkshire puddings in his honour. Fortunately, we had not cooked the beef on the Sunday, or he would have had to be content with the remains of the cold joint; and though I should not have minded, I know Mother Hubbard would have been greatly distressed.
He spoke quite naturally about Rose, and appeared to have enjoyed her company immensely, but he had not seen her again up to then.
When the meal was over we went out into the garden and sat down, and somehow or other the sense of quiet and the beauty of the view soothed me, and I felt less irritable than for days past. I never get tired of the dip of green fields and the stretch of moor on the far side of the wood.
"Can you spare me a full hour, Miss Holden?" he asked. "I have come down specially to see you, principally because I have had a letter from Mr. Evans which in some measure concerns you, and also because I want to continue the discussion of the parable of the marbles which we were considering the other evening."
How pretty the landscape looked from our garden! Cloud shadows were racing each other across the pastures as I lay back and watched them, and I thought the view had never been bonnier.
"I am not overworked," I replied, "and I can give up a whole afternoon, if necessary. What is the news from the squire? Nothing serious, I hope; and yet it must be important to bring you down here specially."
"I hardly know what to say. Something in his letter conveys the impression that he is far from well again, though he does not definitely say so. But it appears that he has asked you to go out to him if he becomes seriously ill. That is so, isn't it?"
"Yes," I answered, "and I have promised to go. It touches me deeply that he should want me."
"I don't wonder," he said; but whether at my emotion or the squire's proposal did not transpire.