Part 37 (1/2)

”You don't want to go and talk to those people. Come with me and see the ponies!”

She responded with characteristic eagerness to the invitation. ”Shall I?

But won't Maud mind? Do you think I ought?”

”Of course you ought,” he rejoined with decision. ”Maud won't care. I'll bring you back to her before the play begins.”

He drew her away through the crowd, and she went with him without further demur. Bunny was tall and bore himself with distinction. There was, moreover, something rather compelling about him just then, and Toby felt the attraction. She suffered the hand that grasped her own.

”Look here!” he said abruptly, as they drew apart from the throng. ”I've got to see more of you somehow. Have you been dodging me all this time?”

”I?” said Toby.

She met his eyes with a funny little chuckle. There was spontaneous mischief in his own.

He gave her hand an admonitory squeeze. ”I'm not laughing. You're not playing the game. What's the good of my coming to the house to see you if we never meet?”

”Don't understand,” said Toby briefly.

”Yes, you do. Or you can if you try. You never seem to have any liberty now-a-days. Is it Maud's doing or your own?”

Toby laughed again lightly and bafflingly. ”I can do anything I want to do,” she said.

”Oh, can you?” Bunny pounced. ”Then you've got to meet me sometimes away from the rest. See? Come! That's only fair.”

Toby made a face at him. ”Suppose I don't want to?” she said.

He laughed into her eyes. ”Don't tell me that! When and where?”

She laughed back. He was hard to resist. ”I don't know. I'm too busy.”

”Rot!” said Bunny.

”You're very rude,” she remarked.

”I'll be ruder when I get the chance,” he laughed. ”Listen, I want to see you alone very badly. You're not going to let me down.”

”I don't know what I'm going to do yet,” said Toby.

But she could not look with severity into the handsome young face that was bent to hers. It was not in her to repulse a friendly influence. She had to respond.

”I'll tell you what you're going to do,” said Bunny, marking her weakening with cheery a.s.surance. ”You'll take Chops for a walk to-morrow evening through the Burchester Woods. You know that gate by the larch copse? It's barely a mile across the down. Be there at seven, and perhaps--who knows?--perhaps--Chops may meet somebody he's rather fond of.”

”And again perhaps he mayn't,” said Toby, suppressing a dimple.

”Oh, I say, that's shabby! You'll give him the chance anyhow?”

The pleading note sounded in Bunny's voice. Toby suddenly dropped her eyes. She looked as if she were bracing herself to refuse.